


The Heir

by anygay



Category: EXO (Band), NCT (Band), NCT 127 - Fandom, SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Badass, Comedy, Disturbing Themes, Drug Use, Eventual Smut, Friendship, Humor, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Mark Lee (NCT) is a Mess, NCT 2018, Romance, Romantic Friendship, Sexual Content, Sexual Humor, Side Relationships - Freeform, Slow Burn, Tongue-in-cheek, Violence, lee taeyong being a bad bitch, lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-08 07:28:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21472279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anygay/pseuds/anygay
Summary: In which Mark is the son of a drug lord and has to (begrudgingly) take over the "family business" after his father's untimely death.
Relationships: Kim Jungwoo & Suh Youngho | Johnny, Kim Jungwoo/Mark Lee (NCT), Kim Jungwoo/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas, Mark Lee & Lee Taeyong
Comments: 31
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I promise this isn't as angsty as the summary suggests. if it turns out that way, feel free to send your complaints to my lawyer.

This might go without saying but dragging a body around is a lot harder than it looks.

The closest would be a sack of rice, but rice didn’t have bones that cracked or cold flesh or was once a functioning member of society that probably had a family and responsibilities. So yeah, nothing like rice. Fuck, why couldn’t he just be dragging a sack of rice?

Mark was figuring this out for the first time in his 20 years of existence. When Jungwoo laid the body on the ground, Mark thought he’d get a head start by going for the feet, picking one up and tugging with all of his strength only to fall back on his ass with a shoe in his hands. He tried slipping it back on the corpse until Jungwoo snatched it from him, throwing both it in the trunk and Mark a look of pure, unadulterated judgement.

“What?” Jungwoo, prodded. “Because his foot might get cold?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Mark hissed back, looking over his shoulder and spotting nothing but trees in the dead of night. “I’ve never… I’ve never done—“

“I know.” Jungwoo stepped over the body to get to Mark, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Look, we don’t have to do this? Let’s call Taeyong hyung.”

“No,” Mark protested instantly. He took a glance at the body on the forest floor, dirtied by gunk and leaves, head turned away from them. “Taeyong hyung already thinks I’m weak.”

“Mark,” Jungwoo bent his knees slightly so that they were at eye level and that poked at Mark’s ego. “I love you but you _are_ weak.” And then pushed his ego completely off the cliff. “It’s okay? Just because your dad did this doesn’t mean that you have to be cut out for it.” And his ego just kept rolling and rolling and rolling…

Mark preferred to stare at the body instead of Jungwoo. At least the dead body didn’t see Mark as the kind of kid that forced himself into shoes that would always be too big. In fact, he’d rather have a conversation with it, with anything that didn’t look at him the way Jungwoo was. It was humiliating. He shrugged his hand off.

“Can we just do this?”

“Mark.”

“Come on, I wanna go home.”

“Mark,” Jungwoo tried to pull him back in but Mark took his hand away from his grasp, rolling his eyes as he stood over the body again, by the feet. “Dude, come on.”

“No, it’s fine. You think I’m weak and that I’ll never meet up to anyone’s expectations. It’s cool, man. Come on, let’s drag this fucking thing.”

“Wow, okay,” Jungwoo pushed his fringe to the side so it wasn’t matted on his forehead with sweat. And because Mark was mad, he chose not to tell Jungwoo that his fringe was all fucked and the strands were pointing up in a weird angle.

Jungwoo walked over to the head, facing Mark. “You’re really doing this right now?”

Mark shoved his fists into his university jacket pockets, one brow higher that the other, looking off to the side. He knew Jungwoo despised it when you didn’t look at him while talking to him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re being a fucking baby right now, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“I’m NOT—“ Once again, Mark looked over his shoulder, thinking that something could have heard him when he raised his voice just then.

“Will you stop? It’s 2am. No one’s taking a casual stroll in the woods in South Korea at two in the fucking morning unless they’re psychotic. And guess what?” Jungwoo pointed at Mark and at himself. “We’ve already filled the quota.”

“It’s your fault,” Mark objected, forgetting to restrain himself and letting his hands flail all over the place. He poked his temples with the tips of his index fingers, seething through his teeth. “You got in my fucking head.”

“Hey Mark, hot take? You’re _always_ in your head.” Jungwoo was doing that thing again, knees bent, eyes looking like they were about to pop out of his head. Mark knew from having lived and breathed next to Jungwoo for almost all of his life that his tall friend just did that sometimes as a habit, regardless if he was excited and happy or, in this case, wanting to tear someone’s head off.

And he was right. Jungwoo was always right. Mark was in his head right now, without Jungwoo’s help at all, going through every possible outcome, blowing things out of proportion, thinking that everything is a wall that he needed to climb. But he wasn’t about to admit that because he hated Jungwoo’s stupid face and his stupid hair and how he always seemed to be a step ahead.

“Well you’re—“ Mark moved his hands about as he went through the rolodex of insults in his head, which shamefully wasn’t that robust of a selection, “—you’re a fucking, you, you are…”

It didn’t help that Jungwoo was giving him the same look you would offer a child that was trying their best. “Don’t hurt yourself now.”

“You’re a slut!” Mark jutted his chin out, squinting. “Yeah, I fucking said it.”

Jungwoo was doubled over in laughter before Mark even finished his second sentence, eyes disappearing into slits when he tried to look back up at Mark, wiping tears away with the back of his hand. “_HWHAT_?”

Mark maintained his stance, darting a finger at him because _yeah_, he figured this was what they were doing at two in the morning. He was calling his best friend a slut while a corpse lay between them. “You fucked that cop.”

“Who? _Johnny_?” Jungwoo’s hands stretched out to his sides as though he was being nailed to a cross for his sins. “Yeah, I fucked Johnny. I fucked Lucas, too.”

“Lucas?”

Jungwoo dropped his hands back down and nodded. “Yeah, his partner.”

“No, I _know_ Lucas,” Mark waved his hand. “But you fucked him?”

“Yeah. Well,” Jungwoo corrected, pointing at his own chest. “More like he fucked—you know.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Mark dismissed. Hell, even the corpse probably got it. “Did you fuck Taeyong hyung, too?”

Mark didn’t know whether to be horrified or impressed by the way Jungwoo had to tilt his head back and go through whatever mental black book he had ready just to answer. In the end, Mark found that he was wholly impressed. “Taeyong hyung, no. I tried once, but he didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Oh.” Mark saw that Jungwoo was bending over and grabbing the body by the elbows. By proxy, Mark found himself doing the same, instead hooking his arms on the backs of the body’s knees so that they could lift him.

They failed the first couple of times; either the limbs slipped from their grasps or their timing was off. Even when they finally found a system that worked, they had to put the corpse down every few steps so that they could breathe. It would have been fine if the car was further from the site that Mark had shot him, but every time he looked over to the car and realized how short the distance was, he was embarrassed for the both of them.

It took them over ten minutes to properly store the body in the trunk—including the back and forth they had to do to transport the groceries from the trunk to the backseat. Jungwoo sifted through the paper bags of groceries that belonged to the now corpse, and found a box of sour candies that he and Mark used to fight over as kids.

Jungwoo walked over to him and tore it open, saying _Ah _to get Mark to open his mouth. When Mark protested and asked that Jungwoo just tip a few pieces in his hand, Jungwoo looked at him like he was ill. “You just touched a dead body.”

“Fair point.”

Mark liked the way the candies made his mouth water, citric acid crusted around the hard shell, feeling like sand paper on his tongue.

“So is he straight?” Mark asked as he pushed the candies around in his mouth.

Jungwoo’s brows furrowed in confusion.

“Taeyong hyung,” Mark clarified.

“I don’t know. Why? You interested?”

“Whah?” Mark’s voice cracked. Probably from how sour the candy was. He cleared his throat. “No, I was just curious.”

“Uhuh,” Jungwoo grinned.

“Fuck off.”

“I can send him a little love note for you.”

“Stop!” Mark shoved him, hoping that it hurt more than he intended. But his best friend only laughed as a response, slinging an arm around Mark’s shoulders as he tossed the empty candy box away.

“Let’s go.”

“Yeah.”

And it really, truly was an honest mistake. Because if either of them could do it all again, they would have checked the trunk first and made sure that the body’s hand wasn’t sticking out. And if it were, Jungwoo wouldn’t have just shut the trunk door as hard as he did. Because the sound that that created was something the both of them could never un-hear.

If there was ever any direct opposite of your favorite song on a cozy day, it was _that_.

Their reactions were on either side of the spectrum. Jungwoo stood there, next to the trunk, wincing with his hand still on the surface of the door so that it wouldn’t go all the way up.

Mark was crumpled into himself, lying on the ground in a fetal position, with his fingers digging into his ears.

“Ew, fuck, _EW_!”

“I know,” Jungwoo whispered, already fantasizing about the amount of showers he would have to take to wash that sound off of him.

“Oh my god, that was the worst fucking sound!”

“Mark, I know!”

“Did it fall off?!” Mark had his eyes closed, pathetically just curled like a macaroni.

“Are you asking if I amputated it?”

“I don’t fucking know! I don’t wanna look at it!”

With a couple of quick breaths, Jungwoo gathered his wits and toed the hand back into the trunk before shutting it closed. He patted dust off the front of his jacket and combed his blond hair back again with his hands, although it caught most of the dirt by the ends.

“Mark,” His gaze dropped to where Bean Mark was, just lying there with his ears plugged.

Jungwoo crouched down and rubbed his back. Slowly, Mark’s eyes fluttered open. “That was so gross.”

Jungwoo was in full agreement. “Tell you what.”

Mark sat up, comforted by the measured rhythm of Jungwoo’s hand going up and down his back. “You and I are gonna go home. We’re gonna hide the vehicle and body in the basement garage for now. And we’re gonna smoke the fattest joint. And then send it off to the cleaning crew. And then we’ll be done with this entire night. Sound good?”

Mark nodded dumbly, watching Jungwoo’s lips the entire time he was speaking. He stood up on wobbly knees, leaning almost all of himself onto Jungwoo as they walked to the car.

On the drive back, they kept the windows down, and Mark forced his eyes open until they watered a bit because of the air. In the empty streets, he saw a billboard with a family’s picture on it. Mark looked over at Jungwoo, blinking curiously, croaking, “The candies were for his kids, huh?”

Jungwoo kept his eyes on the road, reaching out to Mark to rub his nape, as they spent the rest of the car ride home in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last thing Mark remembered was Jungwoo pushing him off his own bed. Everything went black as he skipped to the aftermath, and his head felt like it was being split in two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm thinking i could add to this everyday. but i don't want anyone quoting me on that in case i fail. and i hate failure. 
> 
> and cockroaches.
> 
> <3

The last thing Mark remembered was Jungwoo pushing him off his own bed. Everything went black as he skipped to the aftermath, and his head felt like it was being split in two.

On the far right of his room was a full length mirror. Typically, Mark would stand in front of it and practice whatever he needed to say to the cafeteria lady for lunch, over and over and over; “Two cheese pizzas please.”

Today was unlike any of those days. Today was the day Mark woke up with dried saliva on the side of his mouth, cheek pressed to the hardwood, as the rest of him lay there on his stomach. He looked like a plank of wood. Next to his mirror was a window. The blinds would do a good job at keeping the sunlight at bay, but today they were all mangled and bent – what the fuck happened last night?

But even in Mark’s state, the fact that the sun was out hit him like a ton of bricks. He practically jumped to his feet just to cradle his head seconds later, falling back to his bed where he stayed for the next ten minutes, cursing at the ceiling as if it were at fault.

\--

He always hated his house.

Well, more accurately it was his dad’s house and he was living in it. It wasn’t that the house ugly. In fact it was probably the prettiest in the neighborhood that you could build from _Fuck You _money. His dad basically went full contemporary, with ceiling-to-floor glass windows and for some reason, decided to drape everything in foliage that the sun barely made contact, with the exception of Mark’s room that was at the top floor. Surrounding the house was a tennis court and a pool and fauna that would put any resort or hotel to shame. But the house itself was so dark all the time and everywhere felt like a long hallway leading to nothing. He’d read about houses like his when he was younger, and they belonged to criminals that killed and slaughtered – _oh, actually, yeah no,_ for that purpose the house made a lot of sense.

He wondered if his dad’s insides were comparable, if his chest was just endless corridors and fried lightbulbs. Sometimes Mark dreamt that his darkness was polished wood and vines, and it snaked around him when he was in the womb and cursed him before he was born. But his dad never conditioned Mark to walk in his path nor develop the same passions. If anything, Mark would seek them out, even as kid, sitting in on his dad’s meetings – not the ones where there were guns under the tables of course. He would sit up straighter, trying to match the men and women around the table in height and dominance, failing incredibly at both every single time. Granted, he was ten and practically grew overnight at 13. He had back problems and stretchmarks for most of that summer. But anyway.

The truth was he didn’t think he had much darkness in him at all. But what worried him was when he looked in the mirror, he didn’t see much of anything. He just… _was_.

As he dashed through one of the said halls, on his way to the basement, a clipped, “It’s not there anymore,” stopped him in his tracks.

Mark walked backwards until he was standing by the entrance of the main kitchen where he found Taeyong, in his regular black button up, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, dark slacks and shoes, black hair half-up in a tiny ponytail. He stood by the kitchen sink, hip leaning against the edge, a bowl of cereal in one hand, spoon in another.

“The body?” Taeyong continued. “I took care of it.”

“Oh, I was gonna—“

“Sleep ‘til noon so it could rot?” Taeyong lifted the bowl to his mouth, sipping the rest of the milk before depositing it in the sink.

Taeyong hadn’t really spoken two sentences to Mark after his dad’s funeral, which was around a week ago. And even before that, in the few interactions they’ve had when his dad was still alive, Taeyong was never warm towards him or engaged in prolonged conversation. Mark figured Taeyong just didn’t see reason to appeal to him, which was fair. There was nothing Mark could offer at the time that Taeyong could possibly want; not his friendship nor his company. That in turn made Mark determined to never be in the same room with Taeyong for too long. When Jungwoo couldn’t make it once and Taeyong had to take Mark to his dentist appointment—this was a good four years ago – he was content to just sit in silence in the waiting room with his legs crossed and not speak to Mark unless necessary, which meant to tell him to wear his seatbelt.

This was the most Taeyong had ever spoken to him and Mark wished they could just go back to when Taeyong battled statues in the way he just stood there, stoic and unflinching.

“Sorry,” Mark found himself saying to Taeyong’s immaculate black brogue shoes.

The few beats in which they just stood there was excruciating. Mark scanned the kitchen for the nearest knife set on the counter, imagining it slicing through his carotid artery. Messy, but it would get the job done.

“Jungwoo’s getting ready for school,” Taeyong said, voice steady as he slipped his blazer off one of the highchairs and pushed his arms into the sleeves. He progressed towards Mark on his way out of the kitchen, and Mark could practically feel the cold radiating off of him as he stopped by his side, fixing the collar of his blazer. “Did you do it?”

Mark focused on the linoleum pattern of the floor, a combination of burgundy, blue-gray, and pale yellow, reminded of the time that his dad told the designer that it might look puke-y. He truly said _puke-y_. Mark thought it went well with the rest of the kitchen being white though.

It helped Mark to think about the ground, about the furniture, about the things around him that he could touch and name, when at any second he felt as though he’d fall through the earth and die, which was what that night felt like to him. He had yet to face the gravity of his actions. He was unprepared to even think about it with himself, let alone with Taeyong next to him.

It felt like five eternities had just gone through them and they’d cycled back to that moment, when Taeyong finally moved again and started to walk away, not without forgetting to inform Mark that Jungwoo was getting ready for school and that he should do the same.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth was that Mark didn’t have to go to college. “But you should do it,” his dad said once when he was younger and Mark was trying to argue that he should be homeschooled instead. He remembered that they were in his dad’s office, and Taeyong was sat in one of the three leather chairs in the lounge area, putting together a freshly cleaned Glock.  
His dad turned to Taeyong for affirmation. “School isn’t so bad. What do you think, T?”  
“I haven’t been to school since I sold weed there.”  
“So seventeen? Eighteen?”  
“Like, nine.”  
Mark’s dad did a Kkkkh sound of disapproval as he faced Mark again and added, “Maybe not the best example. But it would be good for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> currently updating everyday c:

The truth was that Mark didn’t have to go to college. “But you should do it,” his dad said once when he was younger and Mark was trying to argue that he should be homeschooled instead. He remembered that they were in his dad’s office, and Taeyong was sat in one of the three leather chairs in the lounge area, putting together a freshly cleaned Glock.

His dad turned to Taeyong for affirmation. “School isn’t so bad. What do you think, T?”

“I haven’t been to school since I sold weed there.”

“So seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Like, nine.”

Mark’s dad did a _Kkkkh_ sound of disapproval as he faced Mark again and added, “Maybe not the best example. But it would be good for you.”

“Good for me how?”

“You know, make some friends? Go to parties. Be your age.” Taeyong walked over to Mark’s dad in the middle of his description, using both hands to offer the weapon. His father tested the weight and feel of it, admiring the craftsmanship of it. It was one of the rare times Mark had ever seen him with one. He held it by the barrel before handing it to Mark, delightedly saying just above a whisper, “Happy 15th birthday, son.”

It took Mark a few beats to snap out of the memory. Apparently he had been staring dumbly at the board, face held up by his palm, Professor Kim Jongin’s voice just going in one ear and out the other. Until Jungwoo kicked the leg of his chair and Mark reacted like he had been electrocuted.

“Still with us, Mark?” The professor asked and Mark would be offended by the condescending nature of his question, except he had to care first.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

That seemed to pacify his professor enough to leave him alone for the rest of the class. Then again, people hardly ever bothered him. In fact, his professor probably wasn’t even trying to humiliate him. It was just that Mark was staring into space and being a freak in the middle of the class. Well, that and his dad died a week ago and Mark chose not to skip a day of school.

A lot of the condolences that came were from their shared group chat. No one personally came up to him to say anything. Some of them relayed their messages through Jungwoo, who made a sure to tell Mark while they were two joints in. Other than that, they all just stared at Mark like he was a science experiment gone wrong.

This was why when his professor asked him to stay after class, Mark didn’t really know what to expect. He was doing fine in class and turning in assignments, he was doing fine on paper.

“Jungwoo, you can go,” Professor Kim said when Jungwoo didn’t move from his chair in the now empty classroom.

“I think I’ll wait for Mark.”

“You can wait outside.”

“No,” he said simply, taking his phone out and tapping open a game.

Mark approached the desk, backpack slung on one shoulder, patting the hairs on the back of his neck down, a nervous habit. “Sorry. About him.”

“It’s fine.” Professor Kim was one of the younger faculty members, but he dressed much older in comparison. _Don’t ever trust a man in that much tweed_, Jungwoo had said once in reference to their young educator. “So, I wanted to see how you were doing.”

_Ah_, Mark thought. He wanted to see at what stage of the grieving process Mark was in and if he was gonna kill himself, maybe. “Good. You?”

Jungwoo stifled a laugh and sunk further into his seat.

“I’m well, thanks.” His professor didn’t seem unfazed, standing from his chair and rounding the desk so that he could perch his hip on the edge and stand closer to Mark.

Mark never understood that. Was it for Mark’s sake? Did he think that eliminating a physical barrier between them would strengthen his trust?

“Do you have any extracurricular projects that you’re a part of yet?”

While Mark was happy that he didn’t have to unpack the vaulted suitcase in his mind labelled _Dad, _the task of talking about his interests outside of school were more, if not equally daunting.

His cringe might have said it all, because his professor was chuckling soon after that. Jungwoo was right. Tweed made a man evil. “Do you want to play an instrument? You could join the band.”

“Uh.” Mark wished he was quick on his feet, that he was good under pressure. “No.”

“No, you don’t play an instrument or no, you don’t wanna join the band?” Then he slowly nodded as they said simultaneously: “Both.” And where Mark had hoped that he would take that as a natural end to the conversation, he pressed on. “What about art?”

“Uh. I’m not, I mean, I can’t. Draw.”

“Okay.” All bad things came in threes. So of course he suggested a third. And it was probably the worst one of all. “How about theater?”

“Theater? Acting? On Stage?”

“Yeah,” Professor Kim said, pulling his phone out and tapping away. When he showed Mark the screen, it was a digital playbill for a play set in Christmas called The Fallen Empire, which didn’t sound very Christmas-y at all. “Do Kyungsoo wrote it. You know him?”

He knew Kyungsoo. Everyone knew Kyungsoo. But he didn’t want to get into that whole thing because—

“Wasn’t he the one that had a meltdown and took all his clothes off during the Mathletes competition last spring?” Jungwoo provided unhelpfully.

While Professor Kim looked at Jungwoo with pensiveness instead of outwardly agreeing because he was a professional, Mark glared at Jungwoo with daggers in his eyes. “He, uh,” Professor Kim continued, “He placed third, I think.”

Jungwoo shrugged and returned to his gaming.

Mark made a mental note to hurt him in some way as soon as they were out of the classroom. “I know him.”

“Great, well he wrote the script and it’s supposed to be really good.”

“Oh,” Mark said dumbly.

You know that thing of when you stand by the edge of a cliff or on the ledge of a tall building, and you look down and you think about falling? And for a split second, you catch yourself flirting with the idea of inching forward, tipping over, and just finding out what it would be like?

If Mark were to explain why he said yes, he would do the play, that would be the closest explanation that he could put it into words. Even though he knew the outcome – brains on a pavement – he still took down Do Kyungsoo’s contact info, bookmarked the playbill, and walked out of there carrying the weight of his backpack and Jungwoo’s stare.

\--

_Cheese pizza. Plain cheese pizza. Just the plain cheese pizza._

Mark slid his tray forward, in line at the cafeteria, while Jungwoo was behind him, squinting at their food choices through the glass case. He didn’t really eat in school and usually just picked stuff off Mark’s plate from time to time. But they had just gotten used to being in each other’s space so much that Jungwoo didn’t see anything wrong with standing next him in any line. This of course led to some pretty interesting moments in the bathroom that were all trivial now.

_Cheese pizza._ Fuck, there it was, next to the cream dory. The comparison of those two food items together was like if Mark were to stand next to Jungwoo in a class picture, and Jungwoo was having a good hair day.

And sure, Mark could just go out and get a cheese pizza from anywhere else. But he’d heard about the cafeteria one at the beginning of the school year and everyone kept talking about it like it was crack? Mark would know a thing or two about crack. So apart from being able to determine whether or not this pizza was going to put him out of business, he wanted to know if it would live up to the hype.

But there was a problem.

As the woman at the serving line frowned at him from beneath her hairnet, that was fastened way below her hairline, Mark’s palms started to sweat at the same speed that his mouth went dry.

“Uh,” was Mark’s first attempt. Medium start. Gotta power on. “I want the…”

And it didn’t help that Jungwoo was staring at him, and that he could feel the other rooting for him, but in a way that was more out of aggravation rather than because he wanted Mark to have a win? The thing was that Jungwoo had been – for the better part of that school year – offering to order for Mark. But it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be _his_ victory. The cheese pizza will have basically been as good as trash. Jungwoo avoided using the word _crazy_. But Mark could tell from the look on his face, every time he said that that it was perpetually dangling from the tip of his tongue.

“The, uh.” Mark could point at it? But why couldn’t he just _say_ it. Just look this woman dead in the hairnet and just say it. Fucking say it. “The, the, the.” It’s fucking pizza. It’s cheese, dough, and sauce? Mark can beat cheese, dough, and sauce. “The, uh, I’d like the—“

“The fish?”

_No, you pathetic, defective cog in the machine. I am twenty and hungry and there are two slices of cheese pizza with my name on it. Mark and Lee need to be put on a plate and served to me, as is my fucking right! I will not have fish. I refuse to have—_

“…fish.”

“Fish it is.”

_Fuck_.

\--

“Riddle me this, Mark,” Jungwoo started as soon as they found a table by the windows in the cafeteria, turning the chair backwards so that he could straddle it, “if you can’t speak two sentences to anyone that isn’t me, how in the living _fuuuuck,” _He pulled on the frame of the chair, because sure, that was necessary, “are you gonna do theater?”

“I don’t have to be an actor.” Mark dumped his bag on the floor, by his feet. He sat down and placed his tray on the table, then proceed to move the fish further away from him. “They could need someone to do the production stuff.”

“Production? You don’t do production.”

“No, but like.” Mark stretched his arms along the table, until his fingers were touching Jungwoo’s sleeve, trying to get some of the pressure off his lower back that was still pretty fucked up from when he grew six inches overnight. “I can wing it. Besides, if it gets Jongin songsaenim off my back then—“

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No, I really wish he’d stop paying so much attention to me coz like—“

Jungwoo grabbed Mark’s face with both hands and turned it toward the window where in the distance a tiny figure by the name of Johnny Seo was leaning casually against a van and waving at them.

“What are they doing here?” Mark asked as Jungwoo got to his feet.

“Let’s find out.”

Mark had to walk twice the speed just to catch up with Jungwoo, even made harder since he realized seconds after that he had to return to the table to retrieve his bag before running back after him.

\--

“What the fuck?” Jungwoo asked as he and Mark approached the van.

“Good to see you, too,” Johnny replied, paper coffee cup in one hand, the other stuffed in his cream coat pocket.

“Yo!” Lucas threw them a peace sign from the driver’s seat window, flashing them a toothy smile.

“Hey, Lucas,” Mark offered him a clipped smile while Jungwoo proceeded to stare Johnny down.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jungwoo asked again.

Johnny tipped his sunglasses a bit, stare bouncing between Mark and Jungwoo. “Didn’t you hear? A man went missing last night. And the two of you are under arrest.”

Both boys stood rooted to their spot, looking more confused than anything.

Johnny broke into a smile just a few beats after. “Just kidding. God, you two are uptight.”

“You can’t just show up to our campus like this.” Jungwoo gestured at the van. “Ever heard of subtlety?”

“Ever heard of hiding in plain sight?”

“You’re fucking ridiculous.”

“And you’re _sloppy_.”

Jungwoo’s face looked like it was about to melt off with the mouth of facial aerobics it was performing just to match the emotions that were racing through his person. “_What_?”

From Johnny’s coat pocket appeared the very same torn up candy box from the night before.

“Fuck,” was all Jungwoo mustered to say, rolling his eyes.

Johnny sucked in through his teeth. “I believe the word you’re looking for is _Thanks_. As in Thanks Johnny, for saving my ass. Once again.”

While Jungwoo decided that he wasn’t going to let that go, therefore engaging in a rather petty war of words with Johnny, in which the latter raised the incriminating evidence just out of the former’s reach, Lucas stepped out of the van, skillfully avoiding the pair, and headed over the Mark. He stretched out his fist to which Mark returned with a bump from his own.

Lucas didn’t speak much Korean, and the little that he did speak wasn’t very good. But that meant that when he and Lucas were together, they didn’t speak much at all. And Mark liked that. Mark also liked that Lucas was devastatingly beautiful but in a lot of ways, didn’t try to match that aesthetic. To Mark, it was especially evident in the way his body moved. He walked with his shoulders tensed up, almost touching his ears, and his toes pointed outward like dancer’s feet. There was an awkwardness about him that made him seem approachable and warm, and Mark didn’t really use those two adjectives a lot regarding the people around him.

“You good?” Lucas asked, accompanying his query with a thumbs up, tilted slightly to the side.

Mark nodded and put both his thumbs up.

“Last night,” Lucas paused, and Mark couldn’t imagine why. Maybe more than choosing how to phrase his question, he was just literally looking for the right words to use. “I know it was you.”

Mark’s brows shot up and he dug his fists deep into the bottom of his dark wash jeans pockets.

“I found your…” Lucas formed his hand into a gun. “Yeah.”

Mark didn’t forget his gun anywhere. He buried it there. Not well enough. He was probably more out of it than he realized. “Shit. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Lucas said reassuringly. “I can give it back to you at your home. I know it was from your dad.”

Something inside Mark’s chest felt like it was shrinking. “Thanks.”

“Anyway,” was the first thing that Johnny said that actually registered on Mark and Lucas after Jungwoo hurled profanities at him for a good minute or so. “The point is you guys got the wrong guy.”

Everything inside Mark felt like it was about to sink and fall right out of his asshole. “What?!”

“I mean, right cartel,” Johnny provided, “But that wasn’t Yuta.”

Jungwoo practically shrieked _What _that some of the students in the distance glanced at him as they walked past. But none of them were actually stupid enough to intervene. “Who the fuck was that then?”

“Park Seokjin, one of the Zeta’s cartel, but not the kingpin.”

“But,” Lucas interject, “a fugitive nonetheless. He escaped from prison a month ago. Dug his way out and everything. So, thanks?”

Johnny snapped his fingers and pointed at Lucas as a way of agreeing.

“Shit.” Jungwoo turned to Mark. “Fuck, we got the wrong guy. Well, it could be like, a message, you know? Like a threat to Yuta.”

“Well, it definitely has to look like that,” Johnny took a sip of coffee. “’Coz the alternative is you guys are incompetent and have faulty sources.”

Mark had his hands cupped around his mouth the entire time, stare darting from Johnny to Jungwoo.

“Mark,” Jungwoo walked over to him and grabbed his shoulders. “Mark, are you okay? Are you gonna throw up?”

Mark nodded.

Jungwoo mirrored the nod then turned to Lucas.

“I have a plastic bag somewhere?”

As Mark heaved into the plastic bag, hiding behind the van, Jungwoo was crouching right next to him, rubbing soothing circles on his bag. Lucas tried to put things into perspective for him in his own way, saying repeatedly that mistakes happen and that they’ve all been there. Johnny came back minutes later with a bottle of water and some mint.

“Sorry,” was all that Mark could think to say after he had cleaned himself up. They were all saying it was okay, but all Mark could hear, repeatedly in his head, was the memory of the gunshots from that night, and how he forgot how to aim and just kept shooting, even with his eyes closed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mark is the son of a drug lord and has to (begrudgingly) take over the "family business" after his father's untimely death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this isn't as angsty as the summary suggests. if it turns out that way, feel free to send your complaints to my lawyer.

They found Taeyong cradled by the hammock in the back, a children’s book with a penguin on the cover masking his face.

“Jungwoo,” Mark whispered, “I think he’s sleeping.”

“So?” And with that, Jungwoo cleared his throat in an abnormally loud way. He gave up after three tries and toed Taeyong’s hip through the hammock, which both Jungwoo and Mark discovered – due to the fact that Taeyong woke up with a start and was ready to blow their brains out with a handgun that either he was already holding or plucked out of thin air – was maybe not the best idea. Like, you wouldn’t just poke a tiger through the cage.

Taeyong took his time too, the hazy tail end of his siesta just about slipping from him, pointing the gun at their general direction while his free hand rubbed at his eyes. While Mark and Jungwoo stood a couple of feet apart with their hands up, on instinct, Mark wondered what kind of voodoo magic surrounded the tiny ponytail Taeyong sported and how it remained unscathed after being flattened into a hammock. That sentiment was also easily extended to Taeyong, just generally as a human being. For Mark, who after a ten minute nap would have a knot on his head that was comfortable enough to nest two birds, seeing Taeyong climb out of a hammock – also something that no one can do swiftly or gracefully, but somehow Taeyong accomplished both – looking like he had just finished getting ready for the day was something his brain could not compute. Either Taeyong sold his soul to the devil like Madonna, or he was the devil. He definitely has the cheekbones for it.

When Taeyong finally put the gun back in its holster and stood up, Mark and Jungwoo shared a look and gradually put their hands down.

Jungwoo shook his fringe to the side and jutted his chin out, back into _Full Jungwoo_, as Mark would describe it. “So,” he started, arms crossed over his chest. Okay, _now_ he was _Full Jungwoo_. “I’m guessing you’ve heard.”

“That you two killed the wrong guy?” Taeyong yawned, picking up his penguin book from the grass and clipping is between his side and arm, hands sliding into his pockets. “Yeah.”

“Johnny told you?”

“No. The body’s face did. Because the two of you thought that shooting him in the head was too mainstream.”

Mark’s face fell at that. He didn’t see the look that Jungwoo tried to throw him before pressing on.

“So you knew. And you still let us do it?” Jungwoo scoffed.

“No,” Taeyong replied monotonously. “_Letting_ you do something implies that I would have some awareness of the event beforehand. The two of you snuck out at God knows what hour, went behind my back, and wobbled the rest of the way into the predicament that we’re in now.”

Mark suspected that Jungwoo didn’t have a response to that, at least not a good one. But before either of them could figure it out, Taeyong was glaring at him. “Why would you do this?”

“I—“ Mark had a plan. He wanted to say that he had a plan. He wanted to say that he wanted respect. He wanted to believe that he deserved to be there, to look at Taeyong back and say that they weren’t that different. And maybe he wanted revenge, too. Maybe.

“Why,” Taeyong proceeded, “couldn’t you have just told me? I’m on your dad’s—on _your_ payroll for a reason. I’m a hitman, it’s what I do.”

“I know. I—“ Mark could only look up to his Adam’s apple, stare refusing to crawl further up than that. “I wanted to… it’s not…”

“Mark was just trying to—“

Mark grabbed Jungwoo’s wrist, shaking his head at him. And though his grip was clammy, Jungwoo didn’t say anything.

“I want, I wanted, wanted to—“ Mark inhaled with a steady four count playing in his head. He lowered his voice because it helped his speech when he whispered. “To be the one. To kill him. Kill the man who. Killed my dad.”

That might have taken some of the weight off. Because when he finally said it, he managed to meet Taeyong’s eyes, but he got nothing from them. The way he looked back at Mark made him feel see-through.

“It’s not going to be that easy. Yuta is not just _some_ man. He’s another kingpin.” Taeyong didn’t break eye contact, even as he paused.

“Mark is too,” Jungwoo interrupted. “Technically.”

“Exactly,” Taeyong directed his attention to him, then back to Mark. “When you decide to start acting like one? You know where to find me.”

The pair of them stared at Taeyong as he walked the length of the stone pathway back to the house, waiting until he was just out of earshot before Jungwoo said something under his breath.

“What?”

“I said _are you hard too_?”

Mark’s wince was met with a huge laugh that Jungwoo ended with: “Just me? Cool.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mark is the son of a drug lord and has to (begrudgingly) take over the "family business" after his father's untimely death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this isn't as angsty as the summary suggests. if it turns out that way, feel free to send your complaints to my lawyer.
> 
> \- I update everyday -

Prior to today, the closest he had ever been in contact to anyone with a psychology degree were ill-equipped guidance counselors. Maybe a few online quizzes here and there to see if he presented psychotic behavior. The more he took them, the more uninteresting he found himself. That didn’t mean he was never curious about therapy. He had all the trappings of someone that could benefit from it the most.

But still, he was nervous. He nibbled on his nails, left leg bouncing, as he and Jungwoo sat in waiting lounge for what felt like forever. They’d only arrived five minutes ago.

“We can go,” Jungwoo said, gently tugging at Mark’s wrist to keep him from having his nails for lunch. “You don’t have to do this.”

“No, I want to.”

He really did. It was just that things he didn’t know fed his anxiety the way it would have probably excited Jungwoo. Times like these, he envied his best friend. He was envious about a lot of things that Jungwoo was, but he never said them out loud because he knew that he’d be shut down immediately. Jungwoo never knew his dad nor his family, and until Mark’s dad adopted him when he was maybe six or seven, Jungwoo maintained that he didn’t remember much else before that. _As far as I’m concerned_, Jungwoo said, _I was born when we met._

“Lee Minhyung?”

Mark ignored the snort he heard from Jungwoo as they stood up and bowed.

“He goes by the name of Mark, actually,” Jungwoo provided, throwing Mark a wink.

Mark rolled his eyes.

“Mark, sure. I’m Dr. Lee Jinki. But you can call me Jinki.” Jinki’s smile was blinding, encouraging, and he talked with his hands a lot, which was a little distracting. “Should we go inside?”

“Yeah, uhm.” Mark looked to Jungwoo. “I think this might take a while.”

“That’s okay. I’ll be here.”

“Okay.”

\--

Jinki glanced at his watch as he took the armchair opposite the couch – that was much less extravagant-looking, Mark noted – and explained that this shouldn’t be that long. “Just an hour.”

Mark nodded, sitting down on the couch and pressing his thighs together, hands on his knees, back straight.

Jinki’s stare roamed over him, his smile not once faltering from the moment they met outside. “Comfortable?”

Mark could be in a cloud and it would probably feel like pins and needles. “Yes.”

“Okay,” Jinki scooted further back in his chair and crossed his legs.

Mark felt tempted to do the same, but he held it together, blinking as he looked around the office. There were books everywhere, on tables, stacked on the floor, not a space left on each shelf. The only saving grace of the cluttered space were the three windows that punctured the red-bricked accent wall. It made everything look rustic instead of like an attic in a forgotten haunted house.

“I haven’t settled in yet,” Jinki explained when he saw Mark focusing on the boxes on the floor. “Excuse the mess.”

“It’s great.” Shit. Mark meant to say that it was _fine_. Not great. Now he sounded sarcastic.

But that seemed to make Jinki laugh. “Thanks, I think so. Are you more organized?”

“Uhm, I, I, not, not organized?” Was that even a sentence? “Minimal.”

“Oh, gotcha.”

From the stereotype in his head, Mark thought it was odd that Jinki didn’t tick_ at least_ one. He wasn’t old, wasn’t in a three-piece suit, didn’t have a German accent, and didn’t spend half the session writing stuff down. He didn’t even sit still. He kept touching his hair and his foot swayed back and forth.

You could tell just by his eyes that Jinki was carefully crafting a reply. It was subtle and you would miss it if you squinted, but Mark caught it just the same. “I noticed that that’s how you are with your friends, too.” He nodded in the direction of the door, to where Jungwoo was probably still seated, absorbed in a game on his phone.

There were layers to that statement. Mark didn’t know where to start. And being overwhelmed didn’t help his case at all. His lips parted but the words didn’t come. There was a disconnect somewhere between his tongue and his brain that wasn’t there before. He hated it. He hated that his speech was a reservoir for his trauma, when communicating what he was thinking would have most likely eased the weight of it.

Jinki uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, arms on his thighs, palms pressed together. “Would it help,” he whispered, “if you talked like this? I read that it’s one method of treating speech. This or singing. Your choice.”

“I, I—“ Mark lowered his voice, though it cracked on his first try. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I, uhm, it helps a bit. But it’s not practical. For all conversations. I think. Neither is. Singing.”

“You’re right.” Jinki fished his phone from his pocket. “Have you tried writing? We could text.”

After a brief exchange of numbers, Jinki’s first text registered on Mark’s phone. _We could try this, just for this session._

_Yeah, this might work._

_Good. So, tell me about Jungwoo._

Mark stared at his phone screen for a few beats before he proceeded to type. _I’ve known him since we were five and six. My dad took him in and officially adopted him some time after that._

_So you’re brothers?_

There were a lot of ways to answer that. Mark should have established first with himself how honest he was willing to be in that moment. The low-level answer, the simplest one, would be yes. On paper, they are brothers. They grew up together, live together, and Jungwoo was probably more of a constant in Mark’s life than his own shadow. Jungwoo stood up for him, protected him, and put him first, the way some brothers did.

Beneath all of the fluff – down to the very core that maybe not a lot of people often ventured into, not even Mark – Jungwoo has no one _but_ Mark. Mark is his whole life, his whole purpose. The entire reason his dad took him in was so that Mark’s feet would never touch the ground. In his dad’s attempts to keep his big enemies his and offer Mark a life that had a semblance of normalcy, he didn’t realize that he’d forgotten what normal was. Where Mark should have gotten toys, he was given weapons. And where he should have gotten a dog, he got Jungwoo. Jungwoo was taught that his life only mattered as much as Mark’s. They weren’t put together to be equals. And they never will be.

“Mark?”

Mark met Jinki’s smile with a small one of his own that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Let me try something else, okay?”

“Okay.”

Mark’s phone buzzed with a message that read: _Tell me about how you met._

Mark’s thumbs scratched the silicone case on the sides of his phone, staring at the message for a few beats before beginning to type.

_I was in the bath and there was a knock on the door. My dad came in with Jungwoo. Jungwoo’s head was shaved and he had dirt all over him and blood. When I would ask him about it, his story always changed. At first he said he didn’t know where the blood came from. Other times he’d say it was from someone he knew. So I stopped asking. He doesn’t talk about his past anyway._

_He climbed into the bath with me. I don’t remember when we first spoke, but it wasn’t then. I remember the water turning gross when he stepped in. I remember that we just sat there and didn’t look at each other, just hugged our knees._

“Is that why,” Jinki started after taking his time with Mark’s message, “he’s the only one you can speak to? Because from the moment you met, you were both naked and vulnerable?”

Mark never thought about it that way before. He did see Jungwoo cry that night, after they were drying off. That was the first and last time. “He, he makes me feel. Safe.”

“So does that mean that you usually feel unsafe?”

Mark put his phone on his lap, tilting his head to the side as he talked, already reaching for the hair on the back of his neck. “Yes.”

“What does,” Jinki paused, pensive. He tried again. “How would you describe _unsafe_? What does that mean or look like to you?”

“It’s, I, it’s—“ Mark reached for his phone again, typing rapidly this time. _When I can’t hear or see anything because it’s all too fast. And I’m slowing down and my breaths are deafening._

Jinki hummed at the message. “Have you always felt this way?”

“No,” Mark’s answer was instant. He knew the point of decline well. “When my dad. When he. He was shot.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” A chink in his armor shined in the way his smile disappeared. “Did this happen a while ago?”

“Two weeks. Two days.”

Jinki stood up and took up the space beside Mark. The dust and the smell of his cologne made Mark’s head spin. He bent one leg up on the couch so that he was facing Mark as he continued; “Can you tell me…” his hand gestures were still evident, but more languid in comparison now. “Tell me… what you think _safe_ is.”

For the next 30 seconds of silence, Mark’s mind was just an open space of white. And a few more seconds after that, Jinki put his hand on Mark’s shoulder and told him that they could answer that another time.

\--

“So you’re just not gonna tell me.”

“I don’t think that’s how therapy works.”

“What?”

Jungwoo already had difficulty hearing Mark on a regular basis because either Mark’s voice was too low or Jungwoo was talking over him, it was even harder when there was a stripper between them while they were sat inside one of the clubs they owned. Mark was fighting to be heard over both the bass and an ass jiggling between their faces.

“I said!” Mark braced himself on the arms of the chair as he moved to the side, though he could only make out half of Jungwoo’s face. “I don’t think that—“

“Maddie, do you mind?” Jungwoo addressed the dancer who was bent over. “We’re trying to have a conversation here.”

She flipped her long hair back as she straightened up and it waterfalled elegantly over her spine. She re-arranged her thong as she turned around at a leisurely pace. “I have to look like I’m working.”

“Then work, oh, I don’t know, every _other_ fucking paying customer that’s in here?” Jungwoo gestured about the sea of men that were either fanning other girls with money or doing their 15th cheers that night.

“Ew, no. I’m almost done with my shift. I don’t wanna work overtime because some guy _really needs someone to talk to_.” Maddie grabbed onto her ankles and swayed from side to side, then she said with her head between her legs: “Hey, sorry about your dad. That sucks.”

Mark touched his own chest, nodding slowly. “Thanks, Maddie.”

When she stood up, she circled the both of them, swaying alternately between her hair and her hips. It wasn’t really dancing but it was weirdly calming to have her around them, like being entranced by a lava lamp.

“So you’re really not gonna tell me what you talked about?” Jungwoo insisted again.

“It might be healthy for us to keep some secrets, you know?”

Jungwoo scoffed. “Since fucking when?”

“I don’t know. You never keep anything from me?”

It started with a shriek from one of the VIP rooms, followed by the door being yanked open and a topless girl running out with her hands over her chest. She went straight to Jungwoo, falling to her knees, noticeably distressed as she whispered something in his ear.

Before Mark could ask what was wrong, a man stumbled out of the same room to the last bass before the music stopped. Jungwoo’s face darkened as he took in the guy, with his shirt half unbuttoned, inebriated laughter falling from his lips along with a combination of slurs that Mark couldn’t fully comprehend from where he was sitting. He tried to grab onto the wall and failed, then the stage, which he managed to phenomenally walk to without doing too much damage. He didn’t even notice how the world had paused around him. How convenient, Mark thought, to not feel anything around you.

Jungwoo got up and suddenly everyone’s eyes were on him. He kept his gaze on the man who was holding himself up by the stage. Jungwoo only needed to point at the doors for the bouncers to move and lock them. It was some of the best choreography Mark had ever witnessed, from the way someone was there to hand Jungwoo a bat, to another person who was ready to catch Jungwoo’s jacket as he slipped it off and tossed it.

Jungwoo used the bat like a cane when he was just a few feet behind the perpetrator, gracious enough to wait for him to catch up with what was about to happen. It took a few non-verbal cues; the man having to notice the silence, the crowd going stiff, and following their eyes, which all led to Jungwoo, who offered him a sweet smile when their eyes met.

The man might have said something like, “you’re pretty,” Mark thought.

But he did hear Jungwoo say _Thank you_ in his most professional tone before taking a big swing from below, breaking the man’s jaw in one hit. The next blow was to his nose. The next five, Mark missed because he was yawning.

While the now unconscious man was being dragged to the back, Mark walked over to where Maddie was hugging the stripper from before. He took off his own jacket and offered it to her, which she accepted gratefully.

Jungwoo got on stage and used the bloody bat to point at the sign at the top that said _NO TOUCHING_, smearing a bit of red on the words. “This!” Jungwoo tapped on the sign again for good measure. “Is up here for a reason! Just because it doesn’t say _no fucking the girls especially without their consent_, doesn’t mean that it’s allowed!” Then as though a switch had flipped, his expression softened, addressing the DJ. “Music?”

The bass returned after a disk scratch sound effect – _Nice touch_, Mark thought – and Jungwoo returned to his seat. “Where were we? Oh yeah, no. I don’t think I have any secrets from you.”

\--

When the man had woken up some hours later, he was being pushed on the hood of a cop car and spitting blood on the surface.

“Why am I the one getting arrested?” He tried fighting Lucas off, which was futile because Mark was pretty sure that if you stayed under Lucas, you could survive a hurricane. Not that he thought about being under Lucas a lot. “I was fucking assaulted!”

“Were you?”

“Look at my fucking face!”

Jungwoo and Mark were stood by the entrance as the managers and staff of the club were cleaning up, talking to Johnny about what had happened.

“That’s him! He assaulted me!”

Lucas didn’t even look at Jungwoo, instead leaning over to explain, “That’s not what the security footage says.”

If the man could express disbelief on his face he probably would, but the fact was that he was drowning in his own blood and everything hurt.

After putting the guy in the back of the car, Lucas rubbed sanitizer on his hands and joined the three of them by the entrance. “Did you tell ‘em?”

“Oh right,” Johnny said, snapping a few times as the memory came to him. “We got a tip.”

“Tip for what?” Jungwoo pushed off the wall from where he was casually leaning, replacing the wall with Mark, perching an elbow on Mark’s shoulder.

“The V cartel has been dealing in your part of Itaewon.”

“Those motherfuckers.” Jungwoo looked to Mark, who was surprisingly calm. “Mark. Did you hear what he said?”

“Yeah, I just… isn’t Itaewon… I mean, it’s. It’s a big. Place.”

“It’s _your_ place,” Johnny said. “It’s where most of your transactions happen. You’ll dent your profits if you lose it.”

“Not losing. We, we have Hongdae too, right?” It helped Mark to just look at Jungwoo the whole time. “Why can’t we just sell in all these places?”

“It doesn’t work like that, Mark,” Jungwoo said with a leveled tone. “All of these popular foreign turfs, your dad waged wars behind the scenes to own. And cartels know that. They’re being disrespectful on purpose to get our attention. To fight us for that place.”

“Oh.”

Jungwoo waved his hand to let Mark know either that it was okay or that they were going to put a pin on it for now. He didn’t mean to, but it made Mark feel a little foolish.

“What kinda guys are we talking about?”

“Mostly college kids, I think, and just a few,” Lucas contributed. “There’s a rave tomorrow at the club that’s like a warehouse? They’re probably gonna sell there.”

“Okay, what’s the club called?”

“The Warehouse.”

Jungwoo squinted. “_Of course_.”

Lucas raised his hands up in defense, “I didn’t fucking name it.”

“You guys should bring Taeyong. And maybe,” Johnny turned to Mark, “you wanna sit this one out?”

“I can go.”

“It might get dangerous.”

“That’s fine.” Mark looked at Jungwoo, wanting support. “I can go.”

Jungwoo turned to Johnny. “He’ll be there.”

Johnny didn’t sound fully convinced, but he knew better than to press on. “Alright. Well have fun, boys.”

As they drove away, Jungwoo slung an around Mark and patted his chest. “You good?”

“Yeah. I just felt a little stupid.”

“Don’t. You’ll learn, okay? Besides, there are stupider things.” Jungwoo smiled. “Like who the fuck names their cartel _V_?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mark is the son of a drug lord and has to (begrudgingly) take over the "family business" after his father's untimely death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this isn't as angsty as the summary suggests. if it turns out that way, feel free to send your complaints to my lawyer.
> 
> \- I update everyday -

The cheese pizza was shining that day and it made Mark’s mouth water, even if he was still five people down from the front of the line. They probably forgot to pat the extra grease off. Mark wanted to find out. Using his mouth. And his tongue. Shit, did he want to fuck the pizza?

“Mark?”

It was shameful, the amount of effort it took for Mark to tear his gaze away from the pizza. He turned his head to the side, then a little ways lower to meet Kyungsoo’s saucer-round eyes.

“You’re Mark, right?”

Jungwoo slipped his phone back into his pocket on cue, entering the space in the cafeteria line where he would press half of himself to Mark’s back. This caught Kyungsoo’s attention, and he tilted his head forward and back to give Jungwoo a puzzled scan.

“I got your text about the play,” Kyungsoo continued, unsure as to who to look at. “And you’re in.” He twisted around slightly to fish the script from his bag, offering it to Mark.

Jungwoo took the script for himself, not that Mark was reaching for it in the first place.

“I highlighted your part.”

Jungwoo was already flipping through the script. He did so for an extended amount of time as they moved through the line, ending by shaking it open to see if something would fall out. Mark knew this was just part of Jungwoo’s whole extra thing, but he never really got used to how funny it was when you could see him revving it up like an engine.

“There’s only one highlighted line.”

Unfazed, Kyungsoo nodded, stare crawling from Jungwoo to Mark. When neither of them said anything further, Kyungsoo adopted a look of confusion. “I’m doing you a favor. You don’t _actually_ want a full on part, do you?”

“Yeah, but one line?” Jungwoo’s voice sounded like what cotton pads felt on skin. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but it was the best way Mark could put it. Not like he was ever pressured to ascribe such a description for his friend’s voice or say it out loud. It was that they’d spent a lot of their youths under the covers, trading stories about their days. This was when they had grown close but Jungwoo was gone most of the day with Mark’s dad. Mark would later learn that it was because he was training in combat and weaponry and whatever else forced him to grow up.

Then there was the one night he went off on his own and met up with someone that he said he knew from the clubs. It was the fact that he smelled like an ashtray that work Mark up first, and then later his covers being pushed off and Jungwoo crawling into his bed at three in the morning, layering the blanket over their heads. He didn’t say much, just that he had sex and it was not what he expected.

The point was that whether he was under a blanket and his eyes were glistening or they were in the heart of something dangerous and Jungwoo had a knife in one hand and gun in the other, he still sounded like cotton pads on skin. Perhaps it was because when you know someone that way, you feel them better than you hear them.

Jungwoo snapped his fingers and it was like Mark was being pulled out of the water.

“What?”

Jungwoo led him further down the line. “You spaced out.”

“I did?”

“What’ll it be?” Hairnet asked, skin looking especially saggy like she’s made sure to stretch and knead it like a pizza dough earlier that day. Which reminded Mark…

“Uh, the, the, I—“ When he looked down at the glass, about to give in and just point at the damn thing, the tray that usually had the pizza on it was empty.

Jungwoo squeezed his shoulder. “Oh yeah, Kyungsoo hyung took the last two pieces. That naked mathlete son of a bitch.”

The upside was that there wasn’t any fish.

\--

It wasn’t that liked Mark enjoyed crowds and loud music, it was that he was used to it.

For a small time when Jungwoo decided to sell pot when they were in high school, Mark was with him every step of the way. He said it helped his sales too, because Mark’s face had a harshness to it when he didn’t smile, forcing buyers to not dilly dally when they approached him. This also meant that Mark had been to the grimiest of clubs that seemingly looked like extended public bathrooms, sardined with bodies that were trying to fuck the person next to him. Why the fuck did he always find himself in the middle of those?

Tonight at The Warehouse, Mark sat on one of the stools by the bar, Jungwoo of course standing by his side. Jungwoo faced the bar, elbows on the counter, thumbs poking out of the holes in the end of the black long-sleeved shirt that was practically tattooed on him. He looked good.

Mark had been told to just keep his eyes peeled for anything suspicious, which was what both he and Jungwoo were trying to do. But not only was the inside of the club too wide and dark save for the flashing lights from the DJ’s booth, Mark also realized that sitting at the bar was a huge disadvantage. He couldn’t just walk up to people and inspect if they were high too, not because he didn’t think to do so but because when he told Jungwoo this, all he got in response was a half-laugh that quickly died down when the other realized he wasn’t kidding.

Jungwoo leaned into Mark’s shoulder, saying loudly into his ear, “You see anything?”

Mark shook his head. “You?”

“Just a cute bartender that won’t give me the time of day,” Jungwoo replied, loud enough for the bartender to hear, which Mark knew was his plan all along. Said bartender gave Jungwoo a small smile and walked to the other side. “Am I hideous or something?”

“No, you look incredible,” Mark assured him. “I think it’s because you’ve already slept with him.”

Jungwoo frowned. “No, I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have.” Mark turned the stool to face Jungwoo as he dove into an explanation. “Remember? I thought you were getting murdered in the next room? So I rushed in and accidentally walked in on you guys? Then he asked if I wanted to join you?”

“No, that guy had a birthmark on his ass.”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“No, it’s not. Hey, hey,” Jungwoo called his attention as he was walking past them again. “Settle a bet for us.”

The bartender aimed a dubious look at him and sighed. “Sure.”

Mark was certain that Jungwoo was going to ask if they’d slept together, just because he had a gaping hole where most people had a filter. So he couldn’t help but clap and laugh when Jungwoo instead asked, “Can you pull your pants down and turn around?”

Where Mark started pounding a fist on the counter was when the guy actually did. He didn’t know what he was more surprised by; the fact that Jungwoo managed to pants a guy without even touching him or that there was no birthmark at all. While Jungwoo was tucking a generous tip in the bartender’s pocket – “For your troubles,” he grinned – his attention was stolen by something in the entrance.

“Oh my fucking god.”

Mark barely heard him over the music, but his lips weren’t difficult to read. His heart raced, whipping his head around to search for what had caused such a reaction from his friend who didn’t even bat an eyelash at men getting their toenails ripped off in front of him.

And when Mark’s eyes focused at the entrance, his mouth went dry.

There will be two moments in Mark’s life where his jaw will drop. The first one was that night, when he saw Taeyong walk through the door. Having lived with Taeyong for most of his life, he never knew the guy to make a sound when he moved. The only time that Mark would notice his presence is when he’d finally catch him in his periphery. That was especially true in a warehouse-like club where the acoustics were a chorus of bass and chatter. But Mark could have sworn that everything went quiet, and every single person on that dancefloor was looking at Taeyong like a field of sunflowers following the sun’s every move.

Taeyong had ditched the dress code that no one assigned him, but stuck with black for his entire outfit. Except for his silky chiffon top that made you question why he bothered to put a shirt on at all. Because see-through wasn’t a color, was it? That was just his skin. His beautiful fucking skin. Also, leather pants? Who wore leather to a rave? And why did it fit him so well? And why was Mark wondering what noise the zipper made when he pulled down on it? Another thing Mark learned was that Taeyong did own some type of hair gel and not just hair elastics because his hair was finally down and swooped to the right, which emphasized the shaved undercut on his left? So you could see his ears that were covered in several piercings of gold and silver?? Mark wasn’t sure if he was dreaming. He wanted to pound his head on the counter top to make sure, but in case he was awake he refrained from it. Too theatrical, he concluded to himself.

By the time Taeyong was in front of them and neither responded when he said a curt _Hey_, Taeyong turned to the bar and ordered a drink. He slid onto the stool next to Mark and their knees bumped. Mark moved his knee away first and shot Jungwoo a look.

Jungwoo was busy counting the silver chains layered around Taeyong’s neck. Mark wondered how Jungwoo could do that so blatantly. If Mark stared at Taeyong too long, he’d probably get a nosebleed. Which was a shame because he did briefly catch a glance of Taeyong’s smudged liner when he was close enough and Jesus Fucking Christ who turned the AC off in The Warehouse? Was it broken? Did they not pay for utilities that month?

The bartender served him a tall glass of water that Taeyong took his time with, then letting an ice chip fall into his mouth so that he could chew on it. His lips were pinker and glossier form the cold. Mark was ready to go into an early grave when Taeyong turned to look at them again, and all they could do was stare back.

“This is a shitty view,” Taeyong said in a flat tone, punctuated by the crunch of the ice chip.

“I’d beg to differ,” Jungwoo responded, tilting his head to the side as he gave Taeyong a shameless look, from hair to dick. “You’re the hottest person I’ve ever seen.”

Taeyong was so stiff, Mark noticed. When he nodded, his back followed in a way. He wasn’t usually like this. He knew that Taeyong was on guard was why, so his shoulders were drawn up. Mark wondered where he kept his gun. There wasn’t a holster in his belt. He could have one tucked in his boot, but that would be a pretty small one. It could be a knife? But that wouldn’t make sense. He knew that Taeyong was more of a firearms type of guy.

Jungwoo, much to Mark’s detriment – although he knew Jungwoo would argue that it was to his advantage – decided to play wingman that night. Mark had never said anything out loud, but Jungwoo knew his heart and his eyes and some parts of him that even Mark didn’t. It didn’t surprise him when Jungwoo could just tell. He gave Mark a small nudge of encouragement, using a combination of darting his eyes and tilting his head toward Taeyong.

It was Mark’s turn to say something. Right. _Something_. “You. You, uhm. You look. You are. Hyung, you—“

“Okay, listen,” Taeyong’s glass landed on the counter with a soft thud, half empty. “I brought four more people. One at the entrance, one at the back, two in the sky,” he pointed at the balconies above the dance floor.

“What about Johnny and Lucas?” Jungwoo asked as he inspected the balcony to spot the other two inside with them.

“They’re roaming the vicinity. I got them on Bluetooth.”

Before Jungwoo could say anything further, Taeyong took out two earpieces for the both of them. Mark mechanically tucked the piece in his ear and covered it with his sideburns. The first thing he heard was Lucas laughing and soon Jungwoo asking something that was interrupted by static.

“What was that?” Johnny asked.

“I said you sound like a seal,” Jungwoo repeated.

“That was Lucas.”

“Hey, Jungwoo!” Lucas’ baritone came through so clear, it was like he was in the room next to them. “Did Mark come?”

“Yes. I’m here,” Mark said.

“Hey, buddy!” Lucas practically barked.

Mark smiled at Jungwoo’s little judgmental eyebrow raise.

“We’re just driving around the block, looking for suspicious activity.”

“Yeah,” Mark said. “Taeyong hyung said that.”

“Taeyong’s looks crazy fucking hot tonight, right?”

“I can hear you, Lucas,” Taeyong deadpanned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

You could hear Lucas try to cover the Bluetooth, and Johnny saying something like, “They can still hear you through mine, you idiot,” until Lucas’ voice comes back again: “Must have picked up something else from a different channel.”

“That’s radio. This is Bluetooth.”

“Cool, well, I’m gonna mute. And just holler if you need anything.”

Jungwoo was muffling his laugh on Mark’s shoulder the entire time, his arms dressed over him. “That was the best.”

From the stage, you could hear the DJ ask the audience if they were ready. The crowd went wild as though it were the perfect response. It was interesting to Mark how a lot of spaces had their own culture. Night life culture was in neon and everyone shouted over the music that were pumped out of gigantic speakers stacked on top of one another. When he blinked, he pictured the scene switch like in projector slides, and suddenly he was in a café and the sun was out. Girls in Chanel tweeds, sipping coffees from tiny cups with their pinkies extended. Men unbuttoned their powder blue blazers and picked up a copy of the morning paper. Bossa nova hummed from smaller speakers set up conspicuously around the corners of the café, like they were trying to pretend that the music was coming from heaven or something.

When Mark blinked again, to change the projector slides, it was back to night, people looking like negatives under a black light, dancing on tables, holding their drinks up. Blink and it was sepia sunlight and single dainty daisies in small vases that served as center pieces for each table. Mark blinked and blinked until he saw girls ripping their Chanel tweeds off and running it under their pencil skirts on café tables, men on all fours, pounding on the scratched up hardwood, the sky flashing yellow and black over and over.

“Mark.”

Mark shook his head and turned to see Taeyong staring at him.

“You were—“

“Spacing out?” Mark could feel the warmth blossom over his cheeks and the base of his neck. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. But you need to focus.”

“I know. I am. I mean. Yes.”

Jungwoo almost always stood to his right. So when he saw nothing but space there, he very quickly started to look like a lost dog in search of its owner.

“He said he was gonna check out the bathroom,” Taeyong supplemented when Mark was beginning to look behind the bar. You never knew with Jungwoo.

Any other time to have lost Jungwoo would have probably been okay? It wasn’t like he needed Jungwoo to pull a string on his back for him to clap his hands and dance like a monkey. He could make a fool of himself just fine on his own. What struck Mark was that even though there was a sea of people around them, their presence combined paled in comparison to Taeyong who stood next to him, back against the bar with his elbows propped on the edge. With his arms back, it stretched the already thin fabric further over his chest. It left very little to the imagination, not that Mark’s imagination needed more help.

When he exhaled, it was like he was emptying out his lungs until they took on the form of deflated bags. He wished he could save some of that air, that he didn’t breathe so fully, so loudly. Then maybe it would be easier to breathe back in.

Mark blinked in several successions when his heart started to beat faster, licking his lips and directing his eyes at anything else other than his shoes. When he braved a glance at Taeyong’s neck, he found that the other was looking at him, or at least in his direction. It was enough to whip his head back, eyes landing on a small container truck that was placed inside The Warehouse that served food. Did they have pizza?

“You’re sweating,” Taeyong said.

Mark touched his forehead where he felt a bead of sweat reach his brows. His body was so stupid sometimes. “I’m. I’m fine.”

He was in fact, everything else but fine. The truth was that the last time he was alone with Taeyong was in the private room inside the funeral home. There was only a wall between them and his dad’s casket, and Taeyong was burning holes into Mark’s skull.

He’d never seen Taeyong so worked up, like every part of him was a loose thread and anywhere you pulled would unravel him. Mark didn’t remember how it started, he just remembered the middle. He remembered Taeyong telling him that it was too much, that taking over for his dad was something Taeyong was being lined up for, that he knew the business inside and out and that Mark probably didn’t even want it. The trouble with arguing with Mark then was that he was worse than someone who wanted it. He didn’t know what he wanted and was therefore too stubborn. This meant that it was a rare moment in his life where he stood his ground and although he stumbled through his words, he managed to push out a straight-forward: “I’m fucking. Doing. It.”

Taeyong left in a rage.

As fucked up as it was, maybe that was when it began. He’d fashioned his timeline according to it; the Before Taeyong Outburst and After Taeyong Outburst. The former was lots of barely catching Taeyong’s shadow, and then seeing him from time to time walking after his dad, and then running into him in the kitchen. The latter was Mark wondering what Taeyong’s weight felt on him every time the older so much as walked past him. He wondered if Taeyong jerked off in the shower or before bed, if jerk off o’ clock was tailored around his work schedule. Mark had only killed a handful of people and during the first few times, he thought he’d never get hard again. It was amazing the things that humans could get used to.

So yeah, he knew Taeyong hated him a little bit. Maybe a lot.

“I’m gonna check on the back,” Taeyong said, tugging on the hem of his top as he straightened up. “You’re good here?”

“Yes,” Mark replied. “I just. Could you… please tell me where. The eyes. I mean the guys. In the sky. In the balcony?”

“What about them?”

“Point them out?” Mark ended his sentence with a lilt in his tone so it didn’t sound like a command. “Please?”

“Okay, I can’t point or we’ll blow their cover.” Taeyong moved in and nearly touched his lips to Mark’s ear. “Look up.”

Mark obeyed like it was the most natural thing.

“A little to the left.”

Mark turned his head to the left slightly.

“Scan the crowd for a girl in a red dress, hair up.”

Then he felt Taeyong’s chest on his arm and something inside him short-circuited. He would have moved away if he wasn’t cornered by the bar. Taeyong also had his hand on the bar counter, arm brushing against Mark’s waist.

“Red, red, red,” Mark whispered as he forcefully siphoned his attention to balcony. Not Taeyong’s breath on the shell of his ear, not the calm in his voice that Mark had only ever heard from a distance. It was eons better up close, not that it needed improvement.

He saw her, fiddling with the pieces of hair she left down to frame her face. If Mark squinted, he could make out the black Bluetooth earpiece.

Mark swallowed what felt like bile building up in his throat. “Okay.”

“Got her?”

“Yeah.”

“Look a little further left.”

Mark turned his head enough that he caught the corner of Taeyong’s lips in his periphery.

“One of the guys leaning over the railing, white shirt with a wifi logo on it. Do you see him?”

Mark spotted him faster than the first one, but he heard himself say no, hoping that Taeyong didn’t catch that lie.

“He’s the first guy you should be able to see from here.”

Shit. Mark backpedaled. “I. I see. I see him.” It was stupid anyway.

Taeyong pushed off the bar counter and combed his hair back. It make Mark think about the prickly feeling around his ears just seconds ago. It would have been his own hair but it could have also been Taeyong’s.

“We’re good?”

Mark nodded, back to looking at the ground.

“Just make sure you don’t shoot one of our guys by accident.”

Mark tried to smile at him, but naturally he ended up just smiling at the tips of his shoes. That was a good one, he thought. Because it was probably in reference to his latest kill which turned out to be a huge mistake. Or wait. No. No, that wasn’t funny at all. If anything, that was probably a really shitty thing to say? Mark had been agonizing over that whole thing for days. He was just now able to sleep soundly and that was a low fucking blow. What the fuck?

Mark frowned, marching to Taeyong and purposefully bumping into his shoulder. It stopped the other dead in his tracks as Mark stood in front of him, fists dug deep into his jacket pockets.

“You can’t fucking talk to me like that,” Mark started, pulling one of his hands out to point at himself. “You might not like it, but I’m your boss. And this isn’t how you treat people in general. This is so fucking cruel. And I know you hate that you didn’t take over or whatever. But that doesn’t give you the right to be a fucking dick to me.”

Taeyong, as far as Mark knew, had about two to three – four would be pushing it – masks packed in his arsenal. The first was disgust, the one he wore as often as no expression at all. It also had very minimal differences to stoic, especially if the two were put side by side. The second was when his eyes were completely cold, not because he was angry but because there was nothing else inside him but determination. Whether that was to crack someone’s skull open or because his cereal had been tampered with, it was hard to tell. The third was actual anger, a rare scene that Mark had witnessed once and then for some reason developed an immunity to. Even rarer -- and one that Mark still wasn’t sure if he truly saw or if his mind was playing tricks on him – was a smile.

It wasn’t a smile that took over his entire face. Mark wasn’t even fully certain that Taeyong was capable of that. It occupied an eighth of real estate on the corner of his mouth, but it still managed to reach his eyes somehow. Mark was unsure as to what he was looking at exactly. Was he being laughed at? It didn’t feel that way.

It might have taken Mark 20 more seconds to decipher or perhaps years, but he would never know. Because Jungwoo had chosen that moment to come in through their earpieces and say that he found out that they were handing molly out through the kitchen while payments were deposited to another dude by the entrance.

“Got it,” Taeyong said, although Mark wasn’t sure if that was for him or for Jungwoo because they were _still_? Holding each other’s _gaze_? Like they were suddenly transported into a Nicholas Sparks novel. Or a Mexican standoff. Mark didn’t know which it was, but he was happy to stand there long enough in Taeyong’s line of vision to find out.

\--

How it usually worked was that Taeyong would come in with some people and scope the place out, figure out how many dealers, how dangerous they looked, what they were selling and where they stocked it. Then they’d signal Johnny and Lucas to come in with their guys and raid the place. Some busts have gone bad, some mediocre, this one in particular were just three college kids that only vaguely understood that they were connected to a cartel somehow.

A lot of times when middlemen stood between middlemen, those at the lower base of the pyramid had little to no understanding who they were working for. All they knew was that they had product to sell and they were going to do what they could to sell it. Such was the case with the three that were kneeling on the pavement, hands behind their heads, practically crying and asking the people around them that were filming to please not post anything on the internet.

The videos surfaced online not two hours later.

At least Mark got to go home before one in the morning, but he was still wired. He wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t like anything exciting happened. Although, there was that one thing with Taeyong. And then that other thing. And it was enough to keep him up at night. He got out of bed and tiptoed into Jungwoo’s room, sinking into the covers with him. As soon as he was settled, Jungwoo turned to face him, hair all over his face, eyes closed, draping an arm lazily over Mark.

Though he was half asleep, he whispered, “Earlier, with hyung…”

“Yeah?”

“I heard you through…” Jungwoo yawned, “the earpiece.”

“Yeah.”

Jungwoo nuzzled his shoulder as he settled back into sleep. “You didn’t stutter.”

It only hit Mark the moment Jungwoo said it. Maybe it was Jungwoo’s rhythmic breathing, or the warmth coming off of his body, but Mark’s eyes started to close. He’ll deal with it tomorrow. “Yeah.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mark is the son of a drug lord and has to (begrudgingly) take over the "family business" after his father's untimely death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this isn't as angsty as the summary suggests. if it turns out that way, feel free to send your complaints to my lawyer.
> 
> \- I update everyday -

It might have been hard to admit but… “I don’t, I, I don’t like—“ he tried whispering, “—being alone.”

Jinki rubbed his chin as he Mark spoke. When he looked like he was waiting for Mark to go on, Mark pressed his lips together to emphasize that he was done.

“Okay,” Jinki said. “Do you think that’s wrong? Not wanting to be alone?”

“I think,” Mark looked down at his hands that were laced together, then back up at Jinki. “I think it’s weak.”

“Why?”

He picked up his phone and signaled to it, and Jinki nodded. They were practicing talking more in their second session and Mark had been pretty proud of himself thus far. He tapped on his phone and hit send. _Every strong person I know would be fine alone._

Jinki read the message with little to no expression. When he met mark’s eyes, you could see the way his mind worked. That must have been tough at times, to be so transparent. “Was your dad fine alone?”

Mark barely saw his dad alone, but that was the nature of the business he was in. He needed to be surrounded by people like a gate, since he was basically the most powerful drug lord of his time. That title was served to Mark on a bed of blood.

_I think he would be fine. He liked to have people around him for practicality. But he himself would have been okay alone, I think._

“What about your mom?”

_My mom was young when she had me. She was younger than my dad. Way younger. And he said she didn’t want to raise me. So he did it._

“Do you ever think about meeting your mom?”

“No,” Mark shook his head, eyes dropping to the cursor blinking on his phone. _I don’t see the point. She didn’t want me then. She’s not going to want me now._

“How does it make you feel when you see your friends, for example, with their moms?”

_I don’t have close friends that were raised by their parents._

That seemed to pull some shock out of Jinki. “Really? Is that a conscious decision? To have friends that have a similar background to you?”

_I don’t think so. I don’t really choose my friends. They just happen to be around. And they were all born alone._ Then Mark followed up with, _I mean after they were born they were handed off and were alone ever since._

“Yeah, like you.”

_No, I have my dad._

Jinki was about to say something but he thought against it. Mark knew what it was though. He was probably going to say that he _had_ his dad. “Now that your dad is gone,” Jinki pivoted, “does that make you feel alone?”

Mark leaned back on the couch. Jinki didn’t ask it directly, but it was the question that Mark hadn’t been able to face since everything went down: How does he feel about his dad dying?

Why couldn’t it be simple? Why couldn’t he pick an emotion like sad, for example, and go with that? Why couldn’t he staple that on his chest so that everyone could read it and just understand that yes, Mark was just like them. He felt sad. He was sad. He could repeat that over and over in his head but he’d be no better than a piece of plastic floating in the ocean, going in every direction arbitrarily, impenetrable. He did feel alone, but it wasn’t because of his dad dying. He always felt alone. That’s why he hated it. Where most kids had monsters under their beds, Mark had skeletons that no one’s monsters could compete with.

There was Jungwoo who read him like a book, but he was trained to. He was a walking sack of extra organs that Mark forced to be his friend. The people that worked for him were merely obstacles for his enemies to encounter to get to him. None of it was real.

“Mark?”

Jinki’s crossed legs came back into view, then the rest of his office, and the smell of dust. Seriously, when was the last time anyone cleaned in here? “Sorry. I do that. I space. I space out. A lot.”

“No need to apologize.” Jinki checked his watch. “Okay, let’s try something. For the rest of the week, whenever you feel like you’re about to zone out, try touching someone.”

“What.”

“Yeah,” Jinki laughed lightly at Mark being visibly perplexed at the very notion. “Like, touch the person next to you. On the arm or the shoulder. Usually what’ll happen is they’ll be all _what the fuck_? So it could pull you from the ledge before you jump. Metaphorically.” 

“Right.”

Jinki stood up so Mark did the same. “Oh, and how many hours have you been sleeping? Gimme a ballpark.”

“Like,” Mark didn’t have to count it on his fingers, but he did, “two?”

“Okay, so that’s something that in medical terms would be described as _not good_.” Jinki smiled. “Try to get more sleep. Do you meditate?”

“No.”

“You could try mediating? You could try lighting a scented candle? Something gentle. I hear vanilla is popular. Or, you know, engage in something strenuous that really wears your body out.”

“Like, like, like exercise?”

“Or, you know, sex.”

“Sorry?”

Mark was already being walked out of the office. Jinki shrugged. “Just a suggestion. Tell me how it goes. I mean the week, not the—yeah, have a good one.”

\--

Have you ever stared so hard at a doorknob that you start to believe that you could turn it with just your mind?

Probably not. Because Mark had been standing in front of his dad’s home office for 20 minutes doing just that, and it did not budge one bit. It was an antique doorknob with a frame, _accented with a timeless character. Goes great with modern or Victorian themed décor. _He heard the designer say that once when the house was being built and he just weirdly never forgot it. He used to stare up at it when he was younger, and now that it was below his eye level, he didn’t feel any less intimidated.

This was his now, in a way.

He curled his fingers over the knob, the bronze finish cold and unwelcoming as he turned it and pushed the door open. He’d been to his dad’s home office a lot of times in the past. It was where he learned that he was shit at chess but pretty handy at putting little ships in bottles. He knew where everything was because his father never redecorated. One thing that was different that afternoon was seeing Taeyong in an Indian seat, by the lower shelves where Mark’s children’s books were kept.

He was scanning through the titles with the pads of his fingers when Mark pushed the door open, and when he looked back at Mark it was difficult to discern if he was bothered by the intrusion or just bothered in general. Like by life and stuff.

“Hey,” Taeyong said and Mark didn’t sense anything there that was telling of his presence being unwanted. But it didn’t make him feel wanted either. As a result, he stayed by the doorway. “Where have you been?”

_Oh._ He was actually trying to start a conversation? _Weird_. “Therapy.”

“Yeah?” Taeyong slipped one of the books out that Mark couldn’t fully see from his view point because of the corner of his father’s desk. Then he turned the book around in his hands and read the back, nose almost pressed to the hard cover. Mark didn’t know he was nearsighted. Maybe he wore contacts when he had jobs to do?

“Yeah.”

“That’s good,” Taeyong said as he squinted at the book. “You should have gone sooner.” Then Mark saw something else that was new: Taeyong tearing his gaze from the book to look at Mark and sincerely add, “I don’t mean it like that. I just mean that therapy is good. Everyone can get something out of it. It’s good that you’re seeking someone out for it.”

Mark took a step inside the office without realizing, his brain having to catch up with his feet. “Oh, uh, I, yeah, thanks.”

Taeyong itched his temple before he spoke again. “Actually, while we’re on the topic, I should also mention last night.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, I didn’t, I shouldn’t have.” Mark was by the desk now, just a few feet away from Taeyong. He recognized the book in his hands. He remembered not liking the ending of that one the first time he read it. It was rushed and sad and no one got what they wanted. “I know you weren’t, you didn’t. You weren’t trying. To be. You know. Cruel.”

“No. I do, most of the time,” Taeyong clarified, like it was a known fact. “But not last night. I misspoke. I literally forgot about that guy you shot? Park Jeongshim?”

“Jeongsik.”

“Jeongsik?” Taeyong frowned. “That doesn’t sound right.”

It didn’t sound right to Mark either. But he stuck by it because he wasn’t going to be the guy that didn’t remember the name of someone he wrongfully killed. “No, yeah, I, I, I’m sure.”

“Okay, whatever.” Taeyong tapped the book on his lap a couple of times. “Yeah, I forgot. I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention.”

It could have been the slight heel in the lace up wing tip shoes Taeyong chose to wear that day – which Mark noted were pretty fucking sleek – or the fact that Mark had somehow managed to sit half of himself just by the edge of the desk, but Taeyong towered over him when he stood up. His black sleeves were rolled up just above his elbows, a comfortable, almost billowy fit around his frame.

He was just so… _overwhelming_ sometimes? For Mark, at least? To look at and to listen to. And on most days where Mark’s emotions were too big for his body, he’d breathe the loudest in the room. That day, it was finally quiet.

“And you’re right,” Taeyong continued, “You’re my boss. I wouldn’t talk to you that way.”

“You wouldn’t?” Mark asked it as more of like he doubted Taeyong rather than a challenge. He wasn’t sure if that translated.

“No. I’m a contract killer, I’m not an asshole.”

Mark’s entire face brightened, like if he had dog ears, they’d be standing up. “Hyung, that, that, was that, that was. A joke?”

Taeyong rolled his eyes. “Well if you have to ask—“

“No!” Mark gestured wildly. “It was funny!”

“Sure.”

“I mean it.”

“Okay, well.” Taeyong rubbed at the inner corner of his right eye. Mark wished he didn’t stretch it around so much. It looked like it hurt. “This has been sufficiently weird. I’m gonna go.” He held the book up.

“Wait,” Mark shot up and crouched near the book case, going over the selection and knowing the titles and plots by heart. He took out a book of which the art was his favorite and offered it to Taeyong. “Please read. It, it, it’s better than—“ Mark took the one from Taeyong’s hands and replaced it, “—this. Better, uhm, ending.”

Taeyong studied the book and didn’t seem too bothered by the switch. He clipped it between his arm and his side, like he usually did, hands in his pants pockets. “Thanks.”

“No. No problem.”

And it honestly didn’t hit Mark until that moment. It never occurred to him that there were things he could do now, decisions he could make, that maybe even his dad wouldn’t think to do. Maybe they were all right to think that Mark couldn’t do this alone. And maybe that was okay. Because Mark didn’t have to.

“Hyung!”

Taeyong turned around by the doorway, fist posted on the frame.

“I, I, I can’t—“ Mark hopped off the desk and walked to the center of the office, where he could be heard better without having to stand too close to Taeyong and risk forgetting to speak. He whispered, “I can’t do this. By myself. But I don’t want. To give it up.”

“Mark,” Taeyong started, already attempting to dismiss the conversation because they’ve had this one before. And they didn’t have to ruin every other conversation by being notified of it.

“Listen,” Mark interrupted. “I can’t give all. But I can give. Half.”

That shut Taeyong up fast. Nothing really caught his attention the way the industry did. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying. I’m asking. You do this. With me. As a partner.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mark is the son of a drug lord and has to (begrudgingly) take over the "family business" after his father's untimely death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> longer chapter here.  
can't upload everyday anymore, but i can upload longer chapters.  
i'm determined to finish this so hope you don't mind the chapters trickling in.

“Why do you think he said no?” Jungwoo asked as he rolled his head to the side lazily. All Jungwoo needed was flies hovering around him so that he'd look as dead as he sounded. 

And it wasn’t like he could blame Jungwoo. As they sat side by side in the school theater room while the rest of the cast stood on stage and worked out their lines and did the same scene over and over, Mark considered that Kyungsoo was a genius at torturing people. The play was still a blur to him. But what little he’d caught of it either by the chopped up scenes or Kyungsoo going over the summary - Mark would be distracted by the faint sound of a door closing or a sneeze that tickled the inside of his nose for the third time that day but never followed through - was enough to convince him that it wasn’t about to go down in history as one of the greatest shows to hit the stage. Maybe he wasn't best judge. His judgement, after all, was clouded by the sneeze, or lack thereof. 

“I don’t know. He didn’t really say anything else,” Mark responded, fiddling with the corners of the script on his lap. “Do you think he’s mad at me?”

“He probably wasn’t mad,” Jungwoo said, inhaling through his teeth. “It’s just his face. Who gets mad at being offered half of a billion dollar company?”

“Taeyong hyung, apparently.” Mark focused his gaze on Jungwoo’s profile. His nose looked cute from the side. “Do you wanna be my partner?”

“I already am your partner,” Jungwoo said without missing a beat, “business partner, no.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not cut out to be a leader.”

Mark’s brows furrowed at that. It might have been dumb, but Mark hadn’t thought about it from that context yet. All he saw was something that he had to take over. He hadn’t fully wrapped his head around what that entailed, like the actual responsibility of it and having a team around him that relied on him. Shit. “Jungwoo, can I even do this?”

“Fuck yeah, you can do this.”

That had Mark covering up a laugh behind his fist. It was the commitment in Jungwoo’s voice and the speed at which he whipped his head around to lock eyes with Mark, and the slight crack in his voice as a result of his conviction that caught him off guard. 

“I’m serious.”

“Yeah, okay. Because all good drug lords struggle with public speaking and throw up every time they kill someone.”

“You’ve already killed more people than your dad ever did,” Jungwoo stated matter-of-factly, brushing his fringe to the side.

“That can’t be true.”

“Except it is. And I mean directly killing them yourself. Your dad never had the stomach for that stuff. He always had other people do it.”

Mark pushed his lips out as he let those words hang in the air, picturing them float above his head without meeting his ears. “Yeah, but what does that really mean? It doesn’t make me a good leader.”

“It doesn’t make you a shit one. It makes you different. And already one layer thicker than your dad was. And think about this; Your dad made it so that your upbringing would be who he was in his adulthood. That’s why he brought me in because he thought I would have to do that stuff for you too, like Taeyong hyung did for him.” Jungwoo walked his fingers along the length of the arm rest between them. “Just someone that would follow you around and attack if someone got out of line. But I’ve never had to do that for you. You can take care of yourself just fine.”

“Right except I just leave evidence everywhere that could cost us our lives and this entire operation,” Mark said quietly, in reference to the night of The Mistaken, a nickname Mark’s brain thought would lessen the blow of that night. That and because he couldn't name it after the guy, whose name had now completely slipped from his mind. 

Jungwoo leaned in close as if suddenly worried that someone was going to overhear. “That’s a pretty good example too, of what I mean. That night, you set your mind to something and you just went out and did it. No hesitation, no hang ups, you just went for it. Granted we could have done it better, but now we know that.”

Jungwoo poked Mark’s temple. “You’re so caught up in whatever is going on in here, you barely realize what you’re capable of. I also feel like sometimes you’re waiting for your time to come. But it’s not always about waiting. Sometimes you gotta just shut the fuck up, trust yourself, and move.”

Mark knew Jungwoo to be the type to get worked up over every little thing. Funny thing was that he had said less to men at the end of his gun compared to the 15-minute rants he’d indulge in whenever someone (it was usually Mark) would eat one of his fruity yoghurts without asking him first.

“You should talk to Taeyong hyung again.”

“Yeah, maybe. Maybe I’ll bring a gun this time,” Mark joked.

Jungwoo licked his thumb and turned the page of the script. “I mean, _ I _wouldn’t wanna get on your bad side.”

“Mark?”

Mark’s head shot up to the front of the stage where he found Kyungsoo in the distance, waving. “Yeah?”

“Do you have your lines down?”

Mark paused, unsure if he was serious or not. “Uhm. It, it’s one line.”

“Uhuh.” Kyungsoo’s voice was rid of any humor as it bounced off the walls of the theater room. “Have you got it down?”

Mark rolled up his script into a tube. “Yep!”

“Alright, come on down. Let’s try it out.”

Now, Mark didn’t act. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out. But beyond that, Mark was also a bad liar. One thing he could do was follow instructions. Well, most of the time. So the script said _ solemn _. To say something. Solemnly.

Mark knew what that was. But as he stood on that bare stage and looked Seulgi, his co-actress, in the eyes he suddenly just didn’t know what the fuck solemn was. What he knew however, was how to say his line in the most deadpan way possible. 

“Your highness, the king has fallen.”

“Cut!” Kyungsoo yelled.

Did people say cut for plays too?

“Okay, Mark?” Kyungsoo was down the stage by the front row of seats, wearing a Steve Jobs turtleneck and gold, round-framed glasses. 

“Yes?”

“Did you read the script?” Mark never noticed this about Kyungsoo before, but damn he was dramatic with his fashion. He always wore something appropriate for the occasion. Well, except for that one time he placed third.

“...yes?”

Kyungsoo narrowed his stare at Mark. “And you do know what solemn means?”

“Yes.”

“Cool, let’s try it that way. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s start that one more time?”

Mark opened his mouth to say his line again until Kyungsoo stopped him and asked him to go stage left and walk into the scene. 

Mark nodded once and complied. Jungwoo surprisingly didn’t say anything when Mark walked backwards the entire time until he was hidden behind the curtain. 

He padded back into the scene, weirdly stiffer than earlier. He missed the X that he was supposed to land on and was too close to Seulgi. He stepped back and took a few seconds to make sure his feet were definitely covering the X, lifted his head and tried one more time: “Your highness--”

“That was awful.”

“You didn’t even let him say his line!” Jungwoo shouted from the back. “And I’m pretty sure the title of this play is from a Starwars movie!”

Kyungsoo merely raised a hand halfway without turning to Jungwoo, focus locked on Mark. “How about I try?”

“Well, I, I, it’s--”

“Let me try.” Kyungwoo was already climbing up the stage, which made him look like a child getting up on a bed that was too high. He waved off the helping hands that crowded around him as he made his way up, tugging the hem of his turtleneck down while he straightened up. 

Kyungsoo jogged in from stage left -- which Mark could have done that if that was what he wanted -- clutching his chest with one hand, the other palm up, face contorted into a scowl. “Your _ highness _ ! The king,” pause, which Mark supposed was for dramatic effect, “has _ fallen _.” He let another few seconds pass before pulling on a phantom rope that shut the curtains in front of his face, whispering, “aaaand, scene. Did you see what I did there?”

Mark was pretty sure that even the blind could somehow see that. It was a _ lot _. “I, I, I think it might be, like, maybe, maybe, too much?”

“It’s theater,” was Kyungsoo’s only explanation. 

“Yes. But isn’t, isn’t, I mean--”

“You have to act for the people in the back row with the nosebleed seats. Do you see?”

“I, I, I, I think--”

“Let’s try again!” Kyungsoo jumped off the stage. Mark noticed that he didn’t land right and did his best not to limp. “Places! Everyone!”

\--

“Your highness, the king has fallen.” Mark looked to Jungwoo for any type of approval as they occupied the champagne room, one of the VIP suites in the strip club. 

Jungwoo was sat on the circular couch, in front of Mark, arms spread out on either side of the frame, legs crossed, the picture of a man on vacation. But his expression was the only exception; brows furrowed, jaw clenched, pout on full display.

“It wasn’t bad,” commented Maddie, sat a few inches away from Jungwoo. She had a diamond bikini on, matched with a thick diamond choker, and Mark felt the chaffing on the inside of his thighs just by looking at it. Maddie had one transparent platform perched up on the edge of the small stage at the center of the champagne room where Mark stood, chest pressed to the back of her thigh as she reached over to paint her toes a metallic baby pink that she said really showed off her tan. She was right. 

“It wasn’t good either?” Jungwoo supplied. “I don’t know, man. Try some movement.”

“Like… twirl?”

“Mark, have you ever seen a fucking doctor twirl before delivering bad news in the waiting room?”

Mark didn’t dignify Jungwoo with a response. He leaned back on the stripper pole behind him and crossed his arms. “I don’t, I, I, I don’t know. How else to say it?”

“You know what?” Jungwoo shook his head. “Fuck it. Even if you’re complete shit up there -- which you will be, no offense.”

“None taken.”

“You’ll still have done it. You don’t have to be good at it. You just have to get through it.”

“But Kyungsoo--”

“Kyungsoo is a fucking drama queen is what he is. And I read the script, the play fucking sucks.”

“But, but, but you’ll still, still, come see--”

“Come see it?” Jungwoo leaned forward, incredulous. “Fuck yeah. You think I’m gonna miss an opportunity to watch you make a fool out of yourself?”

“Can I come?” Maddie asked, in between blowing at the nail polish on her toes. 

“No, Maddie,” Jungwoo said in a level tone, which made it all the more hilarious for Mark. “You know what you can do?”

Maddie propped her cheek on her knee, smiling up at Jungwoo and predicting his next words pristinely; “My job?”

“Ding dong deng, and circle gets the square,” Jungwoo clapped, Mark joining him as soon as he was sat comfortably on the stage, on his haunches. “Don’t you work on tips?”

“Yeah,” Maddie agreed. “I already got three months rent covered tonight.”

“Three?” Mark asked, astounded, looking at Maddie like she’d just discovered the cure to cancer. 

“Yeah,” she answered simply, “and some dude just gave me a laptop. I think it was his daughter’s.”

“What kind of witchcraft blowjobs do you give?” Jungwoo asked.

“The only thing this mouth does is talk, honey.” She got up, capping her nail polish. “Anyway, my shifts done. Good luck with your play, Mark.”

“Thanks, Maddie.”

“I’m gonna go have a cigarette in the back. You wanna come?” Jungwoo asked seconds after Maddie had exited the room. 

“I’ll be out in sec.”

Jungwoo was in the middle of clipping his holstered gun on the inside pocket of his jacket, tilting his head to the side as he smiled down at Mark. “It’s gonna be fine.”

He squeezed Mark’s shoulder on his way out, closing the door behind him. Mark made his way from the stage to the couch, resting his head back and looking up at his reflection on the ceiling. He looked so small from this perspective. He wondered how many kingpins looked like him, how they started and how far along until they got the hang of it. Mark battled a lot with what he had envisioned for himself and the current reality, trying to marry the two ideas even when he had taken no action in the matter.

He had to do something. “Something,” he said to the ceiling. Something that earned him respect. Something that would make everyone trust him. He didn’t have to stand in front of them as his dad, he just needed to establish his authority. But even the mere thought was ridiculous to him. Even when he sat in his father’s chair at the dining table, it always felt like it was too big a space for him to fill. 

Then there was a ringing in his ear and Mark was unsure if it had anything to do with his blood pressure. He hadn’t checked that in a while, but he had been getting migraines frequently lately. There was also the stress, and the eating, and he probably could have skipped the weed earlier. Wait, did weed affect blood pressure. He’d have to google that.

It took him some deep breaths and massages to his temple to realize that the ringing was resonating within the room. It wasn’t in his head. In fact, if Mark tried hard enough, he could trace the source to a cushion on the opposite couch that was beginning to look suspect to him. Carefully, Mark progressed towards it, and sure enough the ringing got louder. The ringing stopped some and started again while Mark was inspecting the cushion.

When there was nothing underneath it, Mark glared at the cushion, slowly tilting his head up to where he knew the security camera was. To whoever was watching, Mark said “I’ll reimburse it” before fishing a swiss army knife from his front pocket and stabbing the cushion, cotton bursting through the line he cut down the front fabric. He tore through the cotton until the black flip phone came into view. 

He pushed the top up with his thumb and placed it to his ear.

Before he could attempt a hello, a distorted voice spoke through the line. “You have an hour to get to the gas station at the nearest exit to your location, or your friend dies.”

“What?”

A pause. Heavy breathing. “Are you serious? I just said-- okay, you have an hour to get to--”

“No, I, I, I know what you, I get it.” Mark looked around the room and only saw himself reflected through the mirrored walls. “Which friend?”

“Your one friend. The blond.”

“Jungwoo?”

“Sure.”

“You have him?”

“I have a sniper in the area and he has your friend, Junsu, in his crosshairs.”

“Jungwoo.”

“That’s what I said.”

Mark felt up his pockets, wanting to reach for his phone.

The voice started again. “If you tell him anything, he’s getting shot.”

Mark paused, mind reeling. “Uhm, can, can, can you tell me the color of, of, of, of his, of his shirt?”

“Excuse me?”

“His, his shirt.”

“Why?”

Mark frowned. “Proof.”

“I don’t fucking know. I’d have to ask my guy.”

“Oh, you’re, you’re not the, the, the one with, with, with the sniper?”

“No,” the voice said, like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d heard. “I have a guy. I hired him to find-- you know what? Do you want your friend to die or not?”

“Uhm, uh, no.”

“Then you have to get to-- what?” He sounded like he was talking to someone else for a few moments. “Okay, I’ve been told that your friend is in a red shirt.”

_ Fuck _. Mark, whose attention was never that impressive to begin with, wished he knew if that was right. “Yes. Okay.”

“Okay,” the guy said, exhaling exasperatedly. “So. Like I said. You have an hour -- well, now you have 58 minutes -- to get to the nearest--”

Mark hung up, pocketed the phone and went on his way.

\--

The guy had a thing for theatrics, which Mark had had enough of that day, what with Kyungsoo topping him off until he was ready to just collapse like a used condom on the floor. But of course, this guy, who Mark suspected -- more like hoped -- was Yuta, decided that no. It wasn’t enough that he was responsible for Mark’s dad. It wasn’t enough that he basically knocked down a pillar in the narcotics industry. He had to accost Mark too, by having his goons jump him in the male bathroom of the gas station, put a sack over his head that smelled like something old, push him into a van -- this part was what Mark hated the most. He nearly threw up from the bad driving and only seeing crumbs of light from the material and the smell. The only thing that kept it down was that the thought of throwing up in a bag that was over his head, which would essentially mean having to rest with that stew all over his face and neck, was less appealing.

Thankfully he passed out for the rest of the ride.

He came to with his nose itchy and his blood pumping. His eyes snapped open, adjusting to the darkness in record time as he took everything in; the space, the shelves, the high ceilings, the lamp on the table in front of him, the duct tape wound tightly around his torso that bound him to a reasonably comfortable chair -- what was that? It was so soft.

Fuuuuck, there was something on his nose. Where was that whisper coming from? Why did everything smell like paint thinner?

“Hello?” His voice echoed throughout the space and soon heard footsteps walking towards him from the back. 

A man appeared from behind him, snake patterned suit and fancy sounding shoes, his hair platinum blond, and his movements graceful as he occupied the seat opposite Mark by the table. He was handsome. Like really fucking handsome. And his entire face lit up when he returned Mark’s inquisitive stare. 

“I’d like to start by saying that this isn’t how we usually do meetings,” he said, and his voice was softer than Mark expected. 

“In a dark warehouse in the middle of nowhere with the other person taped to a chair? Could’ve fooled me. Woah, I’m talking really fast. And really loud. Am I loud? I feel like I’m loud. I can hear myself through my mouth. Is that weird?” Mark’s fingers were tapping against the sides of the chair, both his knees bouncing, and he kept wiggling his nose thinking that the air would somehow magically reach for that itch.

For a little while, the man resembled a still photograph. But Mark could see the cogs spinning beneath the head of white hair over his forehead. How did anyone manage to get to that lightness without their hair looking like a tumbleweed? Then the man’s stare crawled somewhere to Mark’s side. As calmly as the man moved, Mark matched with intensity, whipping his head to the side in the same direction, spotting another guy that was positioned next to Mark. 

His dimples cut deep, framing the width of his smile as he looked between Mark and the other guy. “Why’d you give him cocaine, Jaehyun?” The man sat opposite Mark asked, voice gentle but steady. “Now he’s all fidgety.”

“He wouldn’t wake up,” Jaehyun, the guy next to Mark with the dimples and the broad shoulders, said. “Also gets rid of the stutter.”

And all of this was happening over Mark’s panicked questions of “Cocaine? You drugged me? I’m drugged? What the fuck?” And finally arriving at, “who the fuck are you guys?”

“Oh! Where are my manners?” The guy in front of Mark asked, like Mark would know. “This is my associate, Jaehyun.”

Mark looked up at the guy beside him. “Jaehyun,” he repeated.

“And I’m Yuta.”

“Yuta.”

“That’s right.” Yuta extended a hand to Mark. Mark, with his hands tied, stretched his head forward and sniffed.

Yuta withdrew his hand carefully. “Right. You okay, Mark?”

“I think I have xray vision.”

Yuta didn’t say anything and he didn’t look particularly angry, but he looked over to Jaehyun again and Mark could practically hear him say _ Look at what you’ve done _. 

Jaehyun walked over to the edge of the table, on Mark’s side, hip perched, flattening his tie down the line of his chest and stomach, crossing his arms. 

Mark looked between the two and he was fine. He was more than fine. He felt great. He felt like he could have a deep and meaningful conversation with an elephant and then punch it. 

“It’s not like he’ll forget anything,” Jaehyun offered, observing Mark with a small smirk.

“Have you ever measured the depth of your dimples?” Mark asked him.

“No,” Jaehyun answered, unfazed.

“Can I measure it.”

“No.”

“Oh. Yeah, that was weird,” Mark deduced, agreeing with no one in particular. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay, Mark,” Yuta interjected. He pressed the pads of his fingers to the surface of the table, making his hands look like spiders. “Let’s talk business. First of all, I’d like to say my condolences.”

“Can you say that?” Mark looked between Jaehyun and Yuta. “When you killed him? It feels insincere.”

“I see your point,” Yuta conceded, nodding slowly. “Technically, I didn’t kill him.”

“It was one of your guys.”

“Precisely.”

“I think that still counts.” Mark looked to Jaehyun for confirmation. “That still counts.”

Jaehyun considered Mark’s query for a few beats like it were an extensive math problem. He nodded to show that he agreed with Mark. “That’s true, it does count.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Jaehyun?” Yuta asked, just the slightest hint of annoyance in his tone.

Jaehyun licked his lips as he pushed off the table, eyes glued to Mark. “I like you, kid. Good luck.”

Mark tilted his head down, his range of motion limited to that as a bow. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” Jaehyun disappeared somewhere behind Mark, his shoes clacking away in the distance.

“Sorry about that,” Yuta said, referring to Jaehyun. “We don’t usually argue in front of company.”

“That was an argument?” Mark was incredulous, thinking of all the times he and Jungwoo had fought, which wasn’t a lot? But they were pretty stupid and all over the place. 

Yuta dragged his hands back until the fell off the table and onto his lap. “I really am sorry that you’re caught up in this. I have nothing against you, personally.”

“I killed one of your guys.” Mark clenched and unclenched his jaw. 

“Did you?”

“Yes. Yes,” Mark said twice because the first one didn’t sound as confident. “I made a statement. I thought this is about that.”

“Heavens, no. But since we’re on the subject, which one?”

“Park Seokjin.” Mark lit up right after he said it, his jaw hanging open, laughing silently. “I can’t believe I remember. I thought I forgot his name. It’s Park Seokjin.”

Yuta nodded in understanding. “Ah, yes, I got the report on that one. I was told he died in a mugging.”

“No, I put out a hit,” then Mark re-calibrated, head tilting side to side as if to erase his earlier statement. “Well, I did the hit.”

“You’re a hitman?”

“No. Just…” Mark shrugged as best he could with the duct tape around him. “I just felt like it.”

“Ah,” Yuta said, his stare going over Mark from head to where the table started. “Well the turnover in this industry is crazy. Even the guy I sent for your father is dead now.”

“Yay,” Mark let the word fall from his lips like it were a marble.

Yuta drummed the fingers of his right hand on the table surface. His left hand dangled over the chair where he had hooked his arm over the frame. “You probably want me dead.”

“Very much, yes,” Mark said simply. “No offense.”

“None taken. A lot of men want me dead.” Yuta leaned forward, his forearms now on the table, fingers laced into one another. “And we can do that. We can go to war. But let me sell you on the alternative first.”

“Okay?”

“Your father was a very powerful man. He owned this city, more than any cop, any government official. Did you know that?”

Mark didn’t think that was right. His dad’s reputation usually preceded him. “Uhuh. And you wanted that. So you took him out because he was at the top.”

“Basically, yes, but--”

“Did you take me here to kill me?”

“No, why would you think that?”

Mark checked the duct tape around him, the ominous surroundings. The funny thing was that he was literally just making sure he wasn’t pulling things out of his ass. This was a classic kidnapping situation. Once satisfied with the check, he turned his attention back to Yuta and smiled. “I don’t know, maybe I’m paranoid.”

“That’s funny,” Yuta commented. 

“You’re about to use the snake metaphor.”

“Excuse me?”

“The snake metaphor?” Mark adjusted as best he could in his seat. If you leaned a certain way, the back support hit just right. “Like when you want to kill a snake, you start with the head? And your suit.”

“My suit?”

“Seems like you’re a fan.”

Yuta ran his slender fingers along the lining of his blazer, like he was seeing it for the first time and was impressed by the tailoring. “Well yes, I do subscribe to a certain… fascination.”

“I bet,” Mark agreed. He squinted at Yuta’s sleeve. It was difficult to make out the finer details in the dark. “Is that real?”

“No, all of my clothes are cruelty-free. I’m vegan,” Yuta explained with a sense of pride.

“Oh.”

“Are you?”

“No, I love cheese. There’s a pizza that I have my eyes on.”

“Well there’s vegan cheese and vegan pizza?”

“I’d sooner drink piss.” Then Mark added at the tail: “No offense.”

Yuta snorted at that. That was more fascinating than anything. Or maybe Mark was just high. But seeing a drug lord snort to prevent a laugh was so human. Mark did that too. “I concede. Vegan cheese is rancid.”

“Totally. It’s garbage. And like why pretend to be cheese? Just be tofu or whatever the fuck. You know?”

“I do.” 

Silence hung over them some time after that, the proverbial calm before… well, Mark didn’t know if there was going to be a storm. There was one going on in his head and it was hard to sit still. But for cocaine, the calm happened after, right? 

“So,” Yuta started again. “Sorry, where were we?””

“You weren’t gonna kill me?”

“Thank you. Yes, no. I’m not gonna do that.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Mark explained. “I’m the new head.”

Yuta rested his chin on the heel of his palm. “Are you though?”

“Yes,” Mark said with finality. “I’m the heir.”

Yuta cupped a hand over the side of his mouth, stage whispering, “I heard from a little birdie that you’re looking for a partner.”

Mark’s instinct was to jump out of his chair, to move. And while his elbows were poking at the sides of the tape, it only managed to stretch the material by a centimeter but not create much damage. “Who told you that?”

“I have my sources.”

“Who?”

“No, Mark. I can’t tell you. Coz then you’d kill them. And then I’d be out of sources. Do you see my predicament?”

“Was it Taeyong?”

“It’s not important.” Yuta pounded his fist on the table, startling Mark. “Listen. The information is out. Your organization isn’t what it once was. It’s vulnerable, it lacks a leader, and it’s just _ sitting _there, essentially defenseless. Do you want it to stay that way or do you want to do something about it?”

“What makes you think I’m not doing shit?”

“I didn’t say that,” Yuta contested, voice still leveled where Mark started yelling. When did Mark start yelling. What time was it? “In fact, I heard that a certain partner position was open.”

That fucking son of a bitch. The son of fucking bitch. That bitch fucking a son of fucking mother.

“Mark, are you listening?”

Pain was setting somewhere. It was between his eyes, behind his nose, but it wasn’t localized. It was everywhere. “I hear you,” he seethed through his teeth. “And you’re right. I am looking for a partner. But killing my dad kind of disqualifies you, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m kind of funny like that.”

“I knew you would say that.”

“Smart.”

“Okay, there’s no need for the attitude.”

“Undo the tape,” Mark said.

Yuta thought that was hilarious.

“Undo the fucking!” Mark kicked at the ground, the feet of the chair scraping backwards, “tape!”

“I’m not going to undo the tape.”

“Who the fuck does this? Who does business meetings taped to a chair? Who does meetings in fucking warehouses? Why do drug people always do this? There’s so much unecessary space and echo, and it’s fucking dark! We party in warehouses, we trade in warehouses, we have shootouts in warehouses, we have meetings in warehouses -- there are other places! Warehouses! Are for fucking! Storage!”

He was so thirsty, and tired, and his throat was rubbed raw. While Mark tried to catch his breath, Yuta watched him intently and as Mark drew in labored breaths and exhaled, he let an astute observation walk past his lips; “You’re upset.”

“You think?!”

Yuta stood up, buttoning the front of his blazer as he rounded the table at a measured pace, showing Mark a cutter that he’d plucked from inside his pocket. He slid the blade out torturously slow, no longer in Mark’s line of vision, stood behind him. Then silence. 

Just when Mark was about to question what the hold up was, the crook of Yuta’s elbow locked around Mark’s neck, effectively blocking his circulation.

“You’re grieving and I get that. We’re not barbarians here. But if you want to act like a barbarian, like they do in Colombia, where products are distributed without leaders and there is no system except money and bloodlust, that’s your choice.”

Mark’s vision was blurring, shoes scuffing the floor, the bind of the tape stretching, nails digging on the wooden frame of the chair. 

“Like I said, I have nothing against you personally. I’m willing to work with you. I am willing to expand my business and help flourish yours. The two of us would be untouchable. It’s up to you. You have a week.”

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this is one go at 2am. sober.  
and i don't know how frequently i can post, but i'll try to get back to this as much as possible because i've already plotted everything and i don't want it living in my brain anymore.  
special thanks to my friend, [linnhe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linnhe/pseuds/linnhe), who told me this was a solid 7/10 and should fester on the internet. :)  



End file.
